Erewhon revisited twenty years later, both by the original discoverer of the country and by his son

EREWHON
REVISITED

I

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of Utopian Literature

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EREWHON REVISITED

'Ex#/>os Tfip Mot Kewot o/j.u)s 'Atdao wu\r]criy
"os x' (Tepov jxkv Keudy ivl (ppealv, &\\o o£ dvr]'

Him do I hate even as I hate Hell fire,

Who says one thing, and hides another in his heart.

— Iliad, ix. 312, 313

By the same Author

EREWHON

NINTH EDITION

6s.

This Edition has been entirely
revised, and has been reset with
much fresh matter in new type.

Erewhon

Revisited

TWENTY YEARS LATER

Both by the Original Discoverer of
the Country and by his Son

BY

SAMUEL BUTLER

LONDON

GRANT RICHARDS

1901

Printed by Rallan tynk, Hanson <Sr> Co.
At the Rallanlyne Pre*

133 <?&

PREFACE

/ forget when, but not very long after I had published
" Erewhon" in 1872, it occurred to me to ask my-
self what course events in Erewhon would probably take
after Mr. Higgs, as I suppose I may novo call him, had
made his escape in the balloon with Arowhena. Given
a people in the conditions supposed to exist in Erewhon,
and given the apparently miraculous ascent of a remark-
able stranger into the heavens with an earthly bride —
what would be the effect on the people generally ?

There was no use in trying to solve this problem
before, say, twenty years should have given time for
Erewhonian developments to assume something like per-
manent shape, and in 1892 / was too busy with books
now published to be able to attend to Erewhon. It was
not till the early winter of 1900, i.e. as nearly as may
be thirty years after the date of Higgs s escape, that I
found time to deal with the question above stated, and to
answer it, according to my lights, in the book which I
now lay before the public.

I have concluded, I believe rightly, that the events
described in Chapter XXIV. of " Erewhon " would give
rise to such a cataclysmic change in the old Erewhonian
opinions as would result in the development of a new

Preface

religion. Now the development of all new religions
follows much the same general course. In all cases the
times are more or less out of joint — older faiths are
losing their hold upon the masses. At such times, let a
personality appear, strong in itself, and made to seem
still stronger by association with some supposed tran-
scendent miracle, and it will be easy to raise a Lo here !
that will attract many followers. If there be a single
great, and apparently well-authenticated, miracle, others
tvill accrete round it; then, in all religions that have so
originated, there will follow temples, priests, rites, sincere
believers, and unscrupidous exploiters of public credulity.
To chronicle the events that followed Higgs's balloon
ascent without shewing that they were much as they have
been under like conditions in other places, would be to
hold the mirror up to something very wide of nature.

Analogy, however, between courses of events is one
thing — historic parallelisms abound ; analogy between
the main actors in events is a very different one, and one,
moreover, of which few examples can be found. The
development of the new ideas in Ercwhon is a familiar
one, but there is no more likeness between Higgs and
the founder of any other religion, than there is between
fesus Christ and Mahomet. He is a typical middle-
class Englishman, deeply tainted with priggishness in
his earlier years, but in great part freed from it by the
sweet uses of adversity.

If I may be allowed for a moment to speak about
myself, I would say that I have never ceased to profess

Preface

myself a member of the more advanced wing o the
English Broad Church. What those who belong to this
wing believe, I believe. What they reject, I reject. No
two people think absolutely alike on any subject, but when
I converse with advanced Broad Churchmen I find my-
self in substantial harmony vrith them. I believe — and
should be very sorry if I did not believe — that, mutatis
mutandis, such men will find the advice given on pp.
277-281 and 287—291 of this book much what, under
the supposed circumstances, they would themselves give.

Lastly, I should express my great obligations to Mr.
R. A. Streatfcild of the British Museum, who, in
the absence from England of my friend Mr. H. Festing
fones, has kindly supervised the corrections of my book
as it passed through the press.

SAMUEL BUTLER.

May i, 1901.

CONTENTS

I. Up s and downs of Fortune— My father starts for

Erewhon • I

II. To the foot of the pass into Erewhon . . .18

III. My father while camping is accosted by Professors

Hanky and Panky 25

IV. My father overhears more of Hanky and Panky 's

conversation 39

V. My father meets a son, of whose existence he was

ignorant, and strikes a bargain with him . . 55
VI. Further conversation between father and son — The

Professors* hoard ...... 68

VII. Signs of the new order of things catch my father's

eye on every side ....... 77

VIII. Yram, now Mayoress, gives a dinner-party, in the
couise of which she is disquieted by what she
learns frotn Professor Hanky : site sends for her
son George and questions him .... 88

IX. Interview between Yram and her son . . .103
X. My father, fearing recognition at Sunch'ston, be-
takes himself to the neighbouring town of Fair-
mead . . ! 1 4

XI. President Gurgoyle's pamphlet " On the Physics

of Vicarious Existence'1'' 12;

Contents

XII. George fails to find my fat he?; whereon Yram

cautions the Professors 141

XIII. A visit to the Provincial Deformatory at Fair-

mead . . . . . . . . 1 53

XIV. My father makes the acquaintance of Mr. Balmy,

and walks with him next day to Suncliston . 1 63
XV. The temple is dedicated to 7ny father, and certain

extracts are read from his supposed sayings . 180
XVI. Professor Hanky preaches a sermon, in the course
of which my father declares himself to be the
Sunchild . . . . . . . .196

XVII. George takes his father to prison, and there obtains

some useful i?iformation . . . . .212

XVIII. Yram invites Dr. Downie and Mrs. Humdrum
to hmcheon — A passage at arms between her
and Hanky is amicably arranged . . . 222
XIX. A council is held at the Mayor's, in the course
of which George turns the tables on the Pro-
fessors ........ 227

XX. Mrs. Humdrum and Dr. Downie propose a com-
promise, which, after an amendment by George,

is carried nem. con 238

XXI. Yram, on getting rid of her guests, goes to the

prison to see my father . . . . -245
XXII. Mainly occupied with a veracious extract from

a Sunch'stonian Journal . . . . -255
XXIII. My father is escorted to the Mayor's house,
and is introduced to a future daughter-in-
law 267

Contents

XXIV. After dinner, Dr. Downie and the Professors
would be glad to know what is to be done
about Sunchildism . . . . . .275

XXV. George escorts my father to the statues ; the two

then part ....... 285

XXVI. My father reaches home, and dies not long

afterwards 297

XXVII. / meet my brother George at the statues, on the

top of the pass into Erewhon .... 304
XXVI 1 1. George and I spend a few hours together at the
statues, and then part — / reach home — Post-
script ........ 320

Erewhon Revisited

CHAPTER I

UPS AND DOWNS OF FORTUNE — MY FATHER
STARTS FOR EREWHON

Before telling the story of my father's second
visit to the remarkable country which he discovered
now some thirty years since, I should perhaps say
a few words about his career between the publi-
cation of his book in 1872, and his death in the
early summer of 1891. I shall thus touch briefly
on the causes that occasioned his failure to main-
tain that hold on the public which he had appar-
ently secured at first.

His book, as the reader may perhaps know, was
published anonymously, and my poor father used
to ascribe the acclamation with which it was
received, to the fact that no one knew who it
might not have been written by. Omne ignotum
pro magnifico, and during its month of anonymity
the book was a frequent topic of appreciative
comment in good literary circles. Almost coin-
cidently with the discovery that he was a mere
nobody, people began to feel that their admiration

A

Erewhon Revisited

had been too hastily bestowed, and before long
opinion turned all the more seriously against him
for this very reason. The subscription, to which
the Lord Mayor had at first given his cordial
support, was curtly announced as closed before it
had been opened a week ; it had met with so little
success that I will not specify the amount eventually
handed over, not without protest, to my father ;
small, however, as it was, he narrowly escaped
being prosecuted for trying to obtain money under
false pretences.

The Geographical Society, which had for a few
days received him with open arms, was among the
first to turn upon him — not, so far as I can ascer-
tain, on account of the mystery in which he had
enshrouded the exact whereabouts of Erewhon,
nor yet by reason of its being persistently alleged
that he was subject to frequent attacks of alcoholic
poisoning — but through his own want of tact, and
a highly-strung nervous state, which led him to
attach too much importance to his own discoveries,
and not enough to those of other people. This,
at least, was my father's version of the matter, as
I heard it from his own lips in the later years of
his life.

" I was still very young," he said to me, " and
my mind was more or less unhinged by the
strangeness and peril of my adventures." Be this
as it may, I fear there is no doubt that he was
injudicious; and an ounce of judgement is worth
a pound of discovery.

Ups and Downs

Hence, in a surprisingly short time, he found
himself dropped even by those who had taken
him up most warmly, and had done most to find
him that employment as a writer of religious tracts
on which his livelihood was then dependent. The
discredit, however, into which my father fell, had
the effect of deterring any considerable number
of people from trying to rediscover Erewhon, and
thus caused it to remain as unknown to geogra-
phers in general as though it had never been
found. A few shepherds and cadets at up-country
stations had, indeed, tried to follow in my father's
footsteps, during the time when his book was still
being taken seriously ; but they had most of them
returned, unable to face the difficulties that had
opposed them. Some few, however, had not re-
turned, and though search was made for them,
their bodies had not been found. When he
reached Erewhon on his second visit, my father
learned that others had attempted to visit the
country more recently — probably quite indepen-
dently of his own book ; and before he had him-
self been in it many hours he gathered what the
fate of these poor fellows doubtless was.

Another reason that made it more easy for
Erewhon to remain unknown, was the fact that
the more mountainous districts, though repeatedly
prospected for gold, had been pronounced non-
auriferous, and as there was no sheep or cattle
country, save a few river-bed flats above the upper
gorges of any of the rivers, and no game to tempt

Erewhon Revisited

the sportsman, there was nothing to induce people
to penetrate into the fastnesses of the great snowy
range. No more, therefore, being heard of Ere-
whon, my father's book came to be regarded as
a mere work of fiction, and I have heard quite
recently of its having been seen on a second-hand
bookstall, marked " 6d. very readable."

Though there was no truth in the stories about
my father's being subject to attacks of alcoholic
poisoning, yet, during the first few years after his
return to England, his occasional fits of ungovern-
able excitement gave some colour to the opinion
that much of what he said he had seen and done
might be only subjectively true. I refer more
particularly to his interview with Chowbok in the
wool-shed, and his highly coloured description of
the statues on the top of the pass leading into
Erewhon. These were soon set down as forgeries
of delirium, and it was maliciously urged, that
though in his book he had only admitted having
taken "two or three bottles of brandy" with him,
he had probably taken at least a dozen ; and that
if on the night before he reached the statues he
had "only four ounces of brandy" left, he must
have been drinking heavily for the preceding fort-
night or three weeks. Those who read the follow-
ing pages will, I think, reject all idea that my father
was in a state of delirium, not without surprise
that any one should have ever entertained it.

It was Chowbok who, if he did not originate
these calumnies, did much to disseminate and

4

Ups and Downs

gain credence for them. He remained in England
for some years, and never tired of doing what he
could to disparage my father. The cunning crea-
ture had ingratiated himself with our leading reli-
gious societies, especially with the more evangelical
among them. Whatever doubt there might be
about his sincerity, there was none about his
colour, and a coloured convert in those days was
more than Exeter Hall could resist. Chowbok
saw that there was no room for him and for my
father, and declared my poor father's story to be
almost wholly false. It was true, he said, that he
and my father had explored the head-waters of
the river described in his book, but he denied that
my father had gone on without him, and he named
the river as one distant by many thousands of miles
from the one it really was. He said that after
about a fortnight he had returned in company with
my father, who by that time had become incapa-
citated for further travel. At this point he would
shrug his shoulders, look mysterious, and thus say
"alcoholic poisoning" even more effectively than
if he had uttered the words themselves. For a
man's tongue lies often in his shoulders.

Readers of my father's book will remember that
Chowbok had given a very different version when
he had returned to his employer's station ; but
Time and Distance afford cover under which false-
hood can often do truth to death securely.

I never understood why my father did not bring
my mother forward to confirm his story. He may

5

Erewhon Revisited

have done so while I was too young to know
anything about it. But when people have made
up their minds, they are impatient of further
evidence ; my mother, moreover, was of a very
retiring disposition. The Italians say : —

" Chi lontano va ammogliare
Sara ingannato, o vorra ingannare."

" If a man goes far afield for a wife, he will be
deceived — or means deceiving." The proverb is
as true for women as for men, and my mother
was never quite happy in her new surroundings.
Wilfully deceived she assuredly was not, but she
could not accustom herself to English modes of
thought ; indeed she never even nearly mastered
our language ; my father always talked with her
in Erewhonian, and so did I, for as a child she
had taught me to do so, and I was as fluent with
her language as with my father's. In this respect
she often told me I could pass myself off anywhere
in Erewhon as a native ; I shared also her personal
appearance, for though not wholly unlike my
father, I had taken more closely after my mother.
In mind, if I may venture to say so, I believe I
was more like my father.

I may as well here inform the reader that I
was born at the end of September 1871, and was
christened John, after my grandfather. From what
I have said above he will readily believe that
my earliest experiences were somewhat squalid.
Memories of childhood rush vividly upon me when

Ups and Downs

I pass through a low London alley, and catch the
faint sickly smell that pervades it — half paraffin,
half black-currants, but wholly something very
different. I have a fancy that we lived in Black-
moor Street, off Drury Lane. My father, when
first I knew of his doing anything at all, supported
my mother and myself by drawing pictures with
coloured chalks upon the pavement ; I used some-
times to watch him, and marvel at the skill with
which he represented fogs, floods, and fires. These
three " f's," he would say, were his three best friends,
for they were easy to do and brought in halfpence
freely. The return of the dove to the ark was his
favourite subject. Such a little ark, on such a hazy
morning, and such a little pigeon — the rest of the
picture being cheap sky, and still cheaper sea ;
nothing, I have often heard him say, was more
popular than this with his clients. He held it to
be his masterpiece, but would add with some
naivete that he considered himself a public bene-
factor for carrying it out in such perishable fashion.
u At any rate," he would say, " no one can bequeath
one of my many replicas to the nation."

I never learned how much my father earned by
his profession, but it must have been something
considerable, for we always had enough to eat and
drink ; I imagine that he did better than many a
struggling artist with more ambitious aims. He
was strictly temperate during all the time that I
knew anything about him, but he was not a tee-
totaler ; I never saw any of the fits of nervous

7

Erewhon Revisited

excitement which in his earlier years had done so
much to wreck him. In the evenings, and on days
when the state of the pavement did not permit him
to work, he took great pains with my education,
which he could very well do, for as a boy he had
been in the sixth form of one of our foremost
public schools. I found him a patient, kindly in-
structor, while to my mother he was a model
husband. Whatever others may have said about
him, I can never think of him without very affec-
tionate respect.

Things went on quietly enough, as above indi-
cated, till I was about fourteen, when by a freak of
fortune my father became suddenly affluent. A
brother of his father's had emigrated to Australia
in 185 1, and had amassed great wealth. We knew
of his existence, but there had been no intercourse
between him and my father, and we did not even
know that he was rich and unmarried. He died
intestate towards the end of 1885, and my father
was the only relative he had, except, of course, my-
self, for both my father's sisters had died young,
and without leaving children.

The solicitor through whom the news reached us
was, happily, a man of the highest integrity, and also
very sensible and kind. He was a Mr. Alfred Emery
Cathie, of 15 Clifford's Inn, E.C., and my father
placed himself unreservedly in his hands. I was at
once sent to a first-rate school, and such pains had
my father taken with me that I was placed in a
higher form than might have been expected con-

Ups and Downs

sidering my age. The way in which he had taught
me had prevented my feeling any dislike for study ;
I therefore stuck fairly well to my books, while not
neglecting the games which are so important a part
of healthy education. Everything went wrell with
me, both as regards masters and school-fellows ;
nevertheless, I was declared to be of a highly ner-
vous and imaginative temperament, and the school
doctor more than once urged our headmaster not
to push me forward too rapidly — for which I have
ever since held myself his debtor.

Early in 1890, I being then home from Oxford
(where I had been entered in the preceding year),
my mother died ; not so much from active illness,
as from what was in reality a kind of maladie du
pays. All along she had felt herself an exile, and
though she had borne up wonderfully during my
father's long struggle with adversity, she began to
break as soon as prosperity had removed the
necessity for exertion on her own part.

My father could never divest himself of the feeling
that he had wrecked her life by inducing her to
share her lot with his own ; to say that he was
stricken with remorse on losing her is not enough ;
he had been so stricken almost from the first year
of his marriage ; on her death he was haunted by
the wrong he accused himself — as it seems to me
very unjustly — of having done her, for it was neither
his fault nor hers — it was Ate.

His unrest soon assumed the form of a burning

desire to revisit the country in which he and my

9

Erewhon Revisited

mother had been happier together than perhaps
they ever again were. I had often heard him betray
a hankering after a return to Erewhon, disguised so
that no one should recognise him ; but as long as
my mother lived he would not leave her. When
death had taken her from him, he so evidently stood
in need of a complete change of scene, that even
those friends who had most strongly dissuaded him
from what they deemed a madcap enterprise,
thought it better to leave him to himself. It would
have mattered little how much they tried to dissuade
him, for before long his passionate longing for the
journey became so overmastering that nothing short
of restraint in prison or a madhouse could have
stayed his going ; but we were not easy about him.

" He had better go," said Mr. Cathie to me, when
I was at home for the Easter vacation, "and get it
over. He is not well, but he is still in the prime of
life ; doubtless he will come back with renewed
health and will settle down to a quiet home life
again."

This, however, was not said till it had become
plain that in a few days my father would be on his
way. He had made a new will, and left an ample
power of attorney with Mr. Cathie — or, as we
always called him, Alfred — who was to supply me
with whatever money I wanted ; he had put all
other matters in order in case anything should
happen to prevent his ever returning, and he set
out on October i, 1890, more composed and cheer-
ful than I had seen him for some time past.

Ups and Downs

I had not realised how serious the danger to my
father would be if he were recognised while he was
in Erewhon, for I am ashamed to say that I had not
yet read his book. I had heard over and over again
of his flight with my mother in the balloon, and had
long since read his few opening chapters, but I had
found, as a boy naturally would, that the succeed-
ing pages were a little dull, and soon put the book
aside. My father, indeed, repeatedly urged me not
to read it, for he said there was much in it — more
especially in the earlier chapters, which I had alone
found interesting — that he would gladly cancel if
he could. " But there ! " he had said with a laugh,
11 what does it matter ? "

He had hardly left, before I read his book from
end to end, and, on having done so, not only ap-
preciated the risks that he would have to run, but
was struck with the wide difference between his
character as he had himself portrayed it, and the
estimate I had formed of it from personal know-
ledge. When, on his return, he detailed to me his
adventures, the account he gave of what he had
said and done corresponded with my own ideas
concerning him ; but I doubt not the reader will
see that the twenty years between his first and
second visit had modified him even more than so
long an interval might be expected to do.

I heard from him repeatedly during the first two
months of his absence, and was surprised to rind
that he had stayed for a week or ten days at more
than one place of call on his outward journey. On

Erewhon Revisited

November 26 he wrote from the port whence he
was to start for Erewhon, seemingly in good health
and spirits ; and on December 27, 1891, he tele-
graphed for a hundred pounds to be wired out to
him at this same port. This puzzled both Mr.
Cathie and myself, for the interval between Novem-
ber 26 and December 27 seemed too short to admit
of his having paid his visit to Erewhon and returned ;
as, moreover, he had added the words, " Coming
home," we rather hoped that he had abandoned his
intention of going there.

We were also surprised at his wanting so much
money, for he had taken a hundred pounds in gold,
which, from some fancy, he had stowed in a small
silver jewel-box that he had given my mother not
long before she died. He had also taken a hundred
pounds worth of gold nuggets, which he had in-
tended to sell in Erewhon so as to provide himself
with money when he got there.

I should explain that these nuggets would be
worth in Erewhon fully ten times as much as
they would in Europe, owing to the great scarcity
of gold in that country. The Erewhonian coinage
is entirely silver — which is abundant, and worth
much what it is in England — or copper, which is
also plentiful ; but what we should call five pounds'
worth of silver money would not buy more than
one of our half-sovereigns in gold.

He had put his nuggets into ten brown holland
bags, and he had had secret pockets made for the
old Erewhonian dress which he had worn when he

Ups and Downs

escaped, so that he need never have more than one
bag of nuggets accessible at a time. He was not
likely, therefore, to have been robbed. His passage
to the port above referred to had been paid before
he started, and it seemed impossible that a man of
his very inexpensive habits should have spent two
hundred pounds in a single month — for the nuggets
would be immediately convertible in an English
colony. There was nothing, however, to be done but
to cable out the money and wait my father's arrival.
Returning for a moment to my father's old Ere-
whonian dress, I should say that he had preserved
it simply as a memento and without any idea that
he should again want it. It was not the court dress
that had been provided for him on the occasion of
his visit to the king and queen, but the everyday
clothing that he had been ordered to wear when he
was put in prison, though his English coat, waist-
coat, and trousers had been allowed to remain in
his own possession. These, I had seen from his
book, had been presented by him to the queen (with
the exception of two buttons, which he had given
to Yram as a keepsake), and had been preserved
by her displayed upon a wooden dummy. The dress
in which he escaped had been soiled during the
hours that he and my mother had been in the sea,
and had also suffered from neglect during the years
of his poverty; but he wished to pass himself off as
a common peasant or working-man, so he preferred
to have it set in order as might best be done, rather

than copied.

13

Erewhon Revisited

So cautious was he in the matter of dress that he
took with him the boots he had worn on leaving
Erewhon, lest the foreign make of his English boots
should arouse suspicion. They were nearly new,
and when he had had them softened and well
greased, he found he could still wear them quite
comfortably.

But to return. He reached home late at night
one day at the beginning of February, and a glance
was enough to show that he was an altered man.

" What is the matter ? " said I, shocked at his
appearance. " Did you go to Erewhon, and were
you ill-treated there ? "

" I went to Erewhon," he said, " and I was not
ill-treated there, but I have been so shaken that
I fear I shall quite lose my reason. Do not ask
me more now. I will tell you about it all to-
morrow. Let me have something to eat, and go
to bed."

When we met at breakfast next morning, he
greeted me with all his usual warmth of affection,
but he was still taciturn. " I will begin to tell
you about it," he said, "after breakfast. Where
is your dear mother ? How was it that I have . . ."

Then of a sudden his memory returned, and he
burst into tears.

I now saw, to my horror, that his mind was gone.
When he recovered, he said : u It has all come
back again, but at times now I am a blank, and
every week am more and more so. I daresay I
shall be sensible now for several hours. We will

14

Ups and Downs

go into the study after breakfast, and I will talk
to you as long as I can do so."

Let the reader spare me, and let me spare the
reader any description of what we both of us felt.

When we were in the study, my father said,
" My dearest boy, get pen and paper and take
notes of what I tell you. It will be all dis-
jointed ; one day I shall remember this, and
another that, but there will not be many more days
on which I shall remember anything at all. I
cannot write a coherent page. You, when I am
gone, can piece what I tell you together, and tell
it as I should have told it if I had been still sound.
But do not publish it yet ; it might do harm to
those dear good people. Take the notes now,
and arrange them the sooner the better, for you
may want to ask me questions, and I shall not be
here much longer. Let publishing wait till you
are confident that publication can do no harm ;
and above all, say nothing to betray the where-
abouts of Erewhon, beyond admitting (which I
fear I have already done) that it is in the Southern
hemisphere."

These instructions I have religiously obeyed.
For the first days after his return, my father had
few attacks of loss of memory, and I was in hopes
that his former health of mind would return when
he found himself in his old surroundings. During
these days he poured forth the story of his adven-
tures so fast, that if I had not had a fancy for
acquiring shorthand, I should not have been able

15

Erewhon Revisited

to keep pace with him. I repeatedly urged him
not to overtax his strength, but he was oppressed
by the fear that if he did not speak at once, he
might never be able to tell me all he had to say ;
I had, therefore, to submit, though seeing plainly
enough that he was only hastening the complete
paralysis which he so greatly feared.

Sometimes his narrative would be coherent for
pages together, and he could answer any questions
without hesitation ; at others, he was now here and
now there, and if I tried to keep him to the order of
events he would say that he had forgotten inter-
mediate incidents, but that they would probably
come back to him, and I should perhaps be able to
put them in their proper places.

After about ten days he seemed satisfied that I
had got all the facts, and that with the help of the
pamphlets which he had brought with him I should
be able to make out a connected story. " Remem-
ber," he said, " that I thought I was quite well so
long as I was in Erewhon, and do not let me appear
as anything else."

When he had fully delivered himself, he seemed
easier in his mind, but before a month had passed
he became completely paralysed, and though he
lingered till the beginning of June, he was seldom
more than dimly conscious of what was going on
around him.

His death robbed me of one who had been a very
kind and upright elder brother rather than a father ;
and so strongly have I felt his influence still pre-

16

Ups and Downs

sent, living and working, as I believe for better
within me, that I did not hesitate to copy the
epitaph which he saw in the Musical Bank at Fair-
mead,* and to have it inscribed on the very simple
monument which he desired should alone mark his
grave.

The foregoing was written in the summer of
1891 ; what I now add should be dated December 3,
1900. If, in the course of my work, I have misre-
presented my father, as I fear I may have sometimes
done, I would ask my readers to remember that no
man can tell another's story without some involun-
tary misrepresentation both of facts and characters.
They will, of course, see that " Erewhon Revisited"
is written by one who has far less literary skill than
the author of "Erewhon;" but again I would ask
indulgence on the score of youth, and the fact that
this is my first book. It was written nearly ten
years ago, i.e. in the months from March to August
1891, but for reasons already given it could not
then be made public. I have now received permis-
sion, and therefore publish the following chapters,
exactly, or very nearly exactly, as they were left
when I had finished editing my father's diaries, and
the notes I took down from his own mouth — with
the exception, of course, of these last few lines,
hurriedly written as I am on the point of leaving
England, of the additions I made in 1892, on return-
ing from my own three hours' stay in Erewhon, and
of the Postscript.

* See Chapter X.

17 B

CHAPTER II

TO THE FOOT OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON

When my father reached the colony for which
he had left England some twenty-two years pre-
viously, he bought a horse, and started up country
on the evening of the day after his arrival, which
was, as I have said, on one of the last days of
November 1890. He had taken an English saddle
with him, and a couple of roomy and strongly
made saddle-bags. In these he packed his money,
his nuggets, some tea, sugar, tobacco, salt, a flask
of brandy, matches, and as many ship's biscuits
as he thought he was likely to want ; he took no
meat, for he could supply himself from some
accommodation - house or sheep - station, when
nearing the point after which he would have to
begin camping out. He rolled his Erewhonian
dress and small toilette necessaries inside a warm
red blanket, and strapped the roll on to the front
part of his saddle. On to other D's, with which
his saddle was amply provided, he strapped his
Erewhonian boots, a tin pannikin, and a billy that
would hold about a quart. I should, perhaps, ex-
plain to English readers that a billy is a tin can,
the name for which (doubtless of French Canadian

origin) is derived from the words "faire bouillir."

iS

To the Pass

He also took with him a pair of hobbles and a
small hatchet.

He spent three whole days in riding across the
plains, and was struck with the very small signs
of change that he could detect, but the fall in
wool, and the failure, so far, to establish a frozen
meat trade, had prevented any material develop-
ment of the resources of the country. When he
had got to the front ranges, he followed up the
river next to the north of the one that he had
explored years ago, and from the head waters of
which he had been led to discover the only practi-
cable pass into Erewhon. He did this, partly to
avoid the terribly dangerous descent on to the
bed of the more northern river, and partly to
escape being seen by shepherds or bullock-drivers
who might remember him.

If he had attempted to get through the gorge
of this river in 1870, he would have found it
impassable ; but a few river-bed flats had been
discovered above the gorge, on which there was
now a shepherd's hut, and on the discovery of
these flats a narrow horse track had been made
from one end of the gorge to the other.

He was hospitably entertained at the shepherd's
hut just mentioned, which he reached on Monday,
December 1. He told the shepherd in charge of it
that he had come to see if he could find traces
of a large wingless bird, whose existence had been
reported as having been discovered among the
extreme head waters of the river.

19

Erewhon Revisited

"Be careful, sir," said the shepherd; "the river
is very dangerous ; several people — one only about
a year ago — have left this hut, and though their
horses and their camps have been found, their
bodies have not. When a great fresh comes down,
it would carry a body out to sea in twenty-four
hours."

He evidently had no idea that there was a pass
through the ranges up the river, which might ex-
plain the disappearance of an explorer.

Next day my father began to ascend the river.
There was so much tangled growth still unburnt
wherever there was room for it to grow, and so
much swamp, that my father had to keep almost
entirely to the river-bed — and here there was a
good deal of quicksand. The stones also were
often large for some distance together, and he had
to cross and recross streams of the river more than
once, so that though he travelled all day with the
exception of a couple of hours for dinner, he had
not made more than some five and twenty miles
when he reached a suitable camping ground, where
he unsaddled his horse, hobbled him, and turned
him out to feed. The grass was beginning to seed,
so that though it was none too plentiful, what there
was of it made excellent feed.

He lit his fire, made himself some tea, ate his
cold mutton and biscuits, and lit his pipe, exactly
as he had done twenty years before. There was the
clear starlit sky, the rushing river, and the stunted
trees on the mountain-side ; the woodhens cried,

To the Pass

and the "more-pork" hooted out her two mono-
tonous notes exactly as they had done years since ;
one moment, and time had so flown backwards that
youth came bounding back to him with the return
of his youth's surroundings ; the next, and the in-
tervening twenty years — most of them grim ones —
rose up mockingly before him, and the buoyancy
of hope yielded to the despondency of admitted
failure. By and by buoyancy reasserted itself, and,
soothed by the peace and beauty of the night, he
wrapped himself up in his blanket and dropped off
into a dreamless slumber.

Next morning, i.e. December 3, he rose soon
after dawn, bathed in a backwater of the river, got
his breakfast, found his horse on the river-bed, and
started as soon as he had duly packed and loaded.
He had now to cross streams of the river and
recross them more often than on the preceding
day, and this, though his horse took well to the
water, required care ; for he was anxious not to
wet his saddle-bags, and it was only by crossing
at the wide, smooth, water above a rapid, and by
picking places where the river ran in two or three
streams, that he could find fords where his practised
eye told him that the water would not be above his
horse's belly — for the river was of great volume.
Fortunately, there had been a late fall of snow on
the higher ranges, and the river was, for the summer
season, low.

Towards evening, having travelled, so far as he
could guess, some twenty or five and twenty miles

Erewhon Revisited

(for he had made another mid day halt), he reached
the place, which he easily recognised, as that where
he had camped before crossing to the pass that led
into Erewhon. It was the last piece of ground that
could be called a flat (though it was in reality only
the sloping delta of a stream that descended from
the pass) before reaching a large glacier that had
encroached on the river-bed, which it traversed at
right angles for a considerable distance.

Here he again camped, hobbled his horse, and
turned him adrift, hoping that he might again find
him some two or three months hence, for there was
a good deal of sweet grass here and there, with sow-
thistle and anise; and the coarse tussock grass would
be in full seed shortly, which alone would keep him
going for as long a time as my father expected to be
away. Little did he think that he should want him
again so shortly.

Having attended to his horse, he got his supper,
and while smoking his pipe congratulated himself
on the way in which something had smoothed away
all the obstacles that had so nearly baffled him on
his earlier journey. Was he being lured on to his
destruction by some malicious fiend, or befriended
by one who had compassion on him and wished
him well ? His naturally sanguine temperament
inclined him to adopt the friendly spirit theory, in
the peace of which he again laid himself down to
rest, and slept soundly from dark till dawn.

In the morning, though the water was somewhat
icy, he again bathed, and then put on his Erewhonian

To the Pass

boots and dress. He stowed his European clothes,
with some difficulty, into his saddle-bags. Herein
also he left his case full of English sovereigns, his
spare pipes, his purse, which contained two pounds
in gold and seven or eight shillings, part of his stock
of tobacco, and whatever provision was left him,
except the meat — which he left for sundry hawks
and parrots that were eyeing his proceedings appa-
rently without fear of man. His nuggets he con-
cealed in the secret pockets of which I have already
spoken, keeping one bag alone accessible.

He had had his hair and beard cut short on ship-
board the day before he landed. These he now
dyed with a dye that he had brought from England,
and which in a few minutes turned them very nearly
black. He also stained his face and hands deep
brown. He hung his saddle and bridle, his English
boots, and his saddle-bags on the highest bough
that he could reach, and made them fairly fast with
strips of flax leaf, for there was some stunted flax
growing on the ground where he had camped. He
feared that, do what he might, they would not escape
the inquisitive thievishness of the parrots, whose
strong beaks could easily cut leather ; but he could
do nothing more. It occurs to me, though my
father never told me so, that it was perhaps with a
view to these birds that he had chosen to put his
English sovereigns into a metal box, with a clasp to
it which would defy them.

He made a roll of his blanket, and slung it over
his shoulder ; he also took his pipe, tobacco, a

23

Erewhon Revisited

little tea, a few ship's biscuits, and his billy and
pannikin ; matches and salt go without saying.
When he had thus ordered everything as nearly
to his satisfaction as he could, he looked at his
watch for the last time, as he believed, till many
weeks should have gone by, and found it to be
about seven o'clock. Remembering what trouble
it had got him into years before, he took down his
saddle-bags, reopened them, and put the watch
inside. He then set himself to climb the moun-
tain side, towards the saddle on which he had seen
the statues.

24

CHAPTER III

MY FATHER WHILE CAMPING IS ACCOSTED
BY PROFESSORS HANKY AND PANKY

My father found the ascent more fatiguing than
he remembered it to have been. The climb, he
said, was steady, and took him between four and
five hours, as near as he could guess, now that he
had no watch ; but it offered nothing that could
be called a difficulty, and the watercourse that
came down from the saddle was a sufficient guide ;
once or twice there were waterfalls, but they did
not seriously delay him.

After he had climbed some three thousand feet,
he began to be on the alert for some sound of
ghostly chanting from the statues ; but he heard
nothing, and toiled on till he came to a sprinkling
of fresh snow — part of the fall which he had
observed on the preceding day as having whitened
the higher mountains ; he knew, therefore, that
he must now be nearing the saddle. The snow
grew rapidly deeper, and by the time he reached
the statues the ground was covered to a depth of
two or three inches.

He found the statues smaller than he had ex-
pected. He had said in his book — written many
months after he had seen them— that they were

25

Erewhon Revisited

about six times the size of life, but he now thought
that four or five times would have been enough to
say. Their mouths were much clogged with snow,
so that even though there had been a strong wind
(which there was not) they would not have chanted.
In other respects he found them not less mysteri-
ously impressive than at first. He walked two or
three times all round them, and then went on.

The snow did not continue far down, but before
long my father entered a thick bank of cloud, and
had to feel his way cautiously along the stream
that descended from the pass. It was some two
hours before he emerged into clear air, and found
himself on the level bed of an old lake now grassed
over. He had quite forgotten this feature of the
descent — perhaps the clouds had hung over it ; he
was overjoyed, however, to find that the flat ground
abounded with a kind of quail, larger than ours, and
hardly, if at all, smaller than a partridge. The abun-
dance of these quails surprised him, for he did
not remember them as plentiful anywhere on the
Erewhonian side of the mountains.

The Erewhonian quail, like its now nearly, if not

quite, extinct New Zealand congener, can take

three successive flights of a few yards each, but

then becomes exhausted ; hence quails are only

found on ground that is never burned, and where

there are no wild animals to molest them ; the cats

and dogs that accompany European civilisation

soon exterminate them ; my father, therefore, felt

safe in concluding that he was still far from any

26

Hanky and Panky

village. Moreover he could see no sheep or goat's
dung ; and this surprised him, for he thought he
had found signs of pasturage much higher than
this. Doubtless, he said to himself, when he wrote
his book he had forgotten how long the descent
had been. But it was odd, for the grass was good
feed enough, and ought, he considered, to have
been well stocked.

Tired with his climb, during which he had not
rested to take food, but had eaten biscuits, as he
walked, he gave himself a good long rest, and when
refreshed, he ran down a couple of dozen quails,
some of which he meant to eat when he camped for
the night, while the others would help him out
of a difficulty which had been troubling him for
some time.

What was he to say when people asked him, as
they were sure to do, how he was living ? And
how was he to get enough Erewhonian money to
keep him going till he could find some safe means
of selling a few of his nuggets ? He had had a
little Erewhonian money when he went up in the
balloon, but had thrown it over, with everything
else except the clothes he wore and his MSS., when
the balloon was nearing the water. He had
nothing with him that he dared offer for sale, and
though he had plenty of gold, was in reality
penniless.

When, therefore, he saw the quails, he again felt

as though some friendly spirit was smoothing his

way before him. What more easy than to sell

27

Erewhon Revisited

them at Coldharbour (for so the name of the
town in which he had been imprisoned should be
translated), where he knew they were a delicacy,
and would fetch him the value of an English
shilling a piece ?

It took him between two and three hours to
catch two dozen. When he had thus got what
he considered a sufficient stock, he tied their legs
together with rushes, and ran a stout stick through
the whole lot. Soon afterwards he came upon a
wood of stunted pines, which, though there was
not much undergrowth, nevertheless afforded con-
siderable shelter and enabled him to gather wood
enough to make himself a good fire. This was
acceptable, for though the days were long, it was
now evening, and as soon as the sun had gone the
air became crisp and frosty.

Here he resolved to pass the night. He chose a
part where the trees were thickest, lit his fire,
plucked and cleaned four quails, filled his billy
with water from the stream hard by, made tea
in his pannikin, grilled two of his birds on the
embers, ate them, and when he had done all this,
he lit his pipe and began to think things over.

" So far so good," said he to himself ; but hardly
had the words passed through his mind before he
was startled by the sound of voices, still at some
distance, but evidently drawing towards him.

He instantly gathered up his billy, pannikin, tea,
biscuits, and blanket, all of which he had deter-
mined to discard and hide on the following morn-

28

Hanky and Panky

ing ; everything that could betray him he carried
full haste into the wood some few yards off, in the
direction opposite to that from which the voices
were coming, but he let his quails lie where they
were, and put his pipe and tobacco in his pocket.

The voices drew nearer and nearer, and it was
all my father could do to get back and sit down
innocently by his fire, before he could hear what
was being said.

"Thank goodness," said one of the speakers (of
course in the Erewhonian language), " we seem to
be finding somebody at last. I hope it is not some
poacher ; we had better be careful."

" Nonsense ! " said the other. " It must be one
of the rangers. No one would dare to light a fire
while poaching on the King's preserves. What
o'clock do you make it ?"

" Half after nine." And the watch was still in
the speaker's hand as he emerged from darkness
into the glowing light of the fire. My father glanced
at it, and saw that it was exactly like the one he had
worn on entering Erewhon nearly twenty years
previously.

The watch, however, was a very small matter ;

the dress of these two men (for there were only

two) was far more disconcerting. They were not

in the Erewhonian costume. The one was dressed

like an Englishman or would-be Englishman, while

the other was wearing the same kind of clothes

but turned the wrong way round, so that when his

face was towards my father his body seemed to

29

Erewhon Revisited

have its back towards him, and vice versa. The
man's head, in fact, appeared to have been screwed
right round ; and yet it was plain that if he were
stripped he would be found built like other people.

What could it all mean ? The men were about
fifty years old. They were well-to-do people, well
clad, well fed, and were felt instinctively by my
father to belong to the academic classes. That one
of them should be dressed like a sensible English-
man dismayed my father as much as that the other
should have a watch, and look as if he had just
broken out of Bedlam, or as King Dagobert must
have looked if he had worn all his clothes as he
is said to have worn his breeches. Both wore
their clothes so easily — for he who wore them
reversed had evidently been measured with a view
to this absurd fashion — that it was plain their dress
was habitual.

My father was alarmed as well as astounded,
for he saw that what little plan of a campaign he
had formed must be reconstructed, and he had
no idea in what direction his next move should
be taken ; but he was a ready man, and knew
that when people have taken any idea into their
heads, a little confirmation will fix it. A first idea
is like a strong seedling ; it will grow if it can.

In less time than it will have taken the reader
to get through the last foregoing paragraphs, my
father took up the cue furnished him by the second
speaker.

" Yes," said he, going boldly up to this gentle-
30

Hanky and Panky

man, " I am one of the rangers, and it is my duty
to ask you what you are doing here upon the
King's preserves."

"Quite so, my man," was the rejoinder. "We
have been to see the statues at the head of the
pass, and have a permit from the Mayor of
Sunch'ston to enter upon the preserves. We
lost ourselves in the thick fog, both going and
coming back."

My father inwardly blessed the fog. He did
not catch the name of the town, but presently
found that it was commonly pronounced as I
have written it.

"Be pleased to show it me," said my father in
his politest manner. On this a document was
handed to him.

I will here explain that I shall translate the names
of men and places, as well as the substance of the
document ; and I shall translate all names in future.
Indeed I have just done so in the case of Sunch'ston.
As an example, let me explain that the true Ere-
whonian names for Hanky and Panky, to whom
the reader will be immediately introduced, are
Sukoh and Sukop — names too cacophonous to be
read with pleasure by the English public. I must
ask the reader to believe that in all cases I am
doing my best to give the spirit of the original
name.

I would also express my regret that my father did
not either uniformly keep to the true Erewhonian
names, as in the cases of Senoj Nosnibor, Ydgrun,

31

Erewhon Revisited

Thims, &c. — names which occur constantly in Ere-
whon— or else invariably invent a name, as he did
whenever he considered the true name impossible.
My poor mother's name, for example, was really
Nna Haras, and Mahaina's Enaj Ysteb, which he
dared not face. He, therefore, gave these char-
acters the first names that euphony suggested,
without any attempt at translation. Rightly or
wrongly, I have determined to keep consistently to
translation for all names not used in my father's
book ; and throughout, whether as regards names
or conversations, I shall translate with the freedom
without which no translation rises above construe
level.

Let me now return to the permit. The earlier
part of the document was printed, and ran as
follows : —

" Extracts from the Act for the afforesting of
certain lands lying between the town of Sunchild-
ston, formerly called Coldharbour, and the moun-
tains which bound the kingdom of Erewhon, passed
in the year Three, being the eighth year of the
reign of his Most Gracious Majesty King Well-
beloved the Twenty-Second.

" Whereas it is expedient to prevent any of his

Majesty's subjects from trying to cross over into

unknown lands beyond the mountains, and in like

manner to protect his Majesty's kingdom from

intrusion on the part of foreign devils, it is hereby

enacted that certain lands, more particularly de-

32

Hanky and Panky

scribed hereafter, shall be afforested and set apart
as a hunting-ground for his Majesty's private use.

" It is also enacted that the Rangers and Under-
rangers shall be required to immediately kill with-
out parley any foreign devil whom they may
encounter coming from the other side of the
mountains. They are to weight the body, and
throw it into the Blue Pool under the waterfall
shown on the plan hereto annexed ; but on pain
of imprisonment for life they shall not reserve to
their own use any article belonging to the de-
ceased. Neither shall they divulge what they
have done to any one save the Head Ranger,
who shall report the circumstances of the case
fully and minutely to his Majesty.

"As regards any of his Majesty's subjects who
may be taken while trespassing on his Majesty's
preserves without a special permit signed by the
Mayor of Sunchildston, or any who may be con-
victed of poaching on the said preserves, the
Rangers shall forthwith arrest them and bring
them before the Mayor of Sunchildston, who
shall enquire into their antecedents, and punish
them with such term of imprisonment, with hard
labour, as he may think fit, provided that no such
term be of less duration than twelve calendar
months.

" For the further provisions of the said Act,
those whom it may concern are referred to the
Act in full, a copy of which may be seen at the
official residence of the Mayor of Sunchildston."

33 C

Erewhon Revisited

Then followed in MS. "XIX. xii. 29. Permit
Professor Hanky, Royal Professor of Worldly
Wisdom at Bridgeford, seat of learning, city of
the people who are above suspicion, and Pro-
fessor Panky, Royal Professor of Unworldly
Wisdom in the said city, or either of them " [here
the MS. ended, the rest of the permit being in print]
"to pass freely during the space of forty-eight
hours from the date hereof, over the King's pre-
serves, provided, under pain of imprisonment with
hard labour for twelve months, that they do not
kill, nor cause to be killed, nor eat, if another have
killed, any one or more of his Majesty's quails."

The signature was such a scrawl that my father
could not read it, but underneath was printed,
" Mayor of Sunchildston, formerly called Cold-
harbour."

What a mass of information did not my father
gather as he read, but what a far greater mass did
he not see that he must get hold of ere he could
reconstruct his plans intelligently.

"The year three," indeed; and XIX. xii. 29, in
Roman and Arabic characters ! There were no
such characters when he was in Erewhon before.
It flashed upon him that he had repeatedly shewn
them to the Nosnibors, and had once even written
them down. It could not be that . . . No, it was
impossible ; and yet there was the European dress,
aimed at by the one Professor, and attained by
the other. Again "XIX." what was that? "xii."
might do for December, but it was now the 4th

34

Hanky and Panky

of December not the 29th. "Afforested" too?
Then that was why he had seen no sheep tracks.
And how about the quails he had so innocently
killed ? What would have happened if he had
tried to sell them in Coldharbour ? What other
like fatal error might he not ignorantly commit ?
And why had Coldharbour become Sunchildston ?

These thoughts raced through my poor father's
brain as he slowly perused the paper handed to
him by the Professors. To give himself time he
feigned to be a poor scholar, but when he had
delayed as long as he dared, he returned it to
the one who had given it him. Without changing
a muscle he said —

"Your permit, sir, is quite regular. You can
either stay here the night or go on to Sunchildston
as you think fit. May I ask which of you two
gentlemen is Professor Hanky, and which Professor
Panky?"

" My name is Panky," said the one who had the
watch, who wore his clothes reversed, and who had
thought my father might be a poacher.

" And mine Hanky," said the other.

" What do you think, Panky," he added, turning
to his brother Professor, " had we not better stay
here till sunrise ? We are both of us tired, and this
fellow can make us a good fire. It is very dark,
and there will be no moon this two hours. We
are hungry, but we can hold out till we get to
Sunchildston ; it cannot be more than eight or nine
miles further down."

35

Erewhon Revisited

Panky assented, but then, turning sharply to my
father, he said, " My man, what are you doing in
the forbidden dress ? Why are you not in ranger's
uniform, and what is the meaning of all those
quails ? " For his seedling idea that my father
was in reality a poacher was doing its best to
grow.

Quick as thought my father answered, "The
Head Ranger sent me a message this morning to
deliver him three dozen quails at Sunchildston by
to-morrow afternoon. As for the dress, we can
run the quails down quicker in it, and he says
nothing to us so long as we only wear out old
clothes and put on our uniforms before we near
the town. My uniform is in the ranger's shelter
an hour and a half higher up the valley."

" See what comes," said Panky, " of having a
whippersnapper not yet twenty years old in the
responsible post of Head Ranger. As for this
fellow, he may be speaking the truth, but I dis-
trust him."

"The man is all right, Panky," said Hanky, "and
seems to be a decent fellow enough." Then to
my father, " How many brace have you got ? "
And he looked at them a little wistfully.

" I have been at it all day, sir, and I have only
got eight brace. I must run down ten more brace
to-morrow."

" I see, I see." Then, turning to Panky, he said,
" Of course, they are wanted for the Mayor's ban-
quet on Sunday. By the way, we have not yet

36

Hanky and Panky

received our invitation ; I suppose we shall find
it when we get back to Sunchildston."

" Sunday, Sunday, Sunday !" groaned my father
inwardly ; but he changed not a muscle of his face,
and said stolidly to Professor Hanky, " I think you
must be right, sir ; but there was nothing said
about it to me. I was only told to bring the birds."

Thus tenderly did he water the Professor's second
seedling. But Panky had his seedling too, and,
Cain-like, was jealous that Hanky's should flourish
while his own was withering.

" And what, pray, my man," he said somewhat
peremptorily to my father, " are those two plucked
quails doing ? Were you to deliver them plucked ?
And what bird did those bones belong to which I
see lying by the fire with the flesh all eaten off
them ? Are the under-rangers allowed not only to
wear the forbidden dress but to eat the King's quails
as well?"

The form in which the question was asked gave
my father his cue. He laughed heartily, and said,
" Why, sir, those plucked birds are landrails, not
quails, and those bones are landrail bones. Look at
this thigh-bone ; was there ever a quail with such a
bone as that ? "

I cannot say whether or no Professor Panky was
really deceived by the sweet effrontery with which
my father proffered him the bone. If he was taken
in, his answer was dictated simply by a donnish
unwillingness to allow any one to be better in-
formed on any subject than he was himselt.

37

Erewhon Revisited

My father, when I suggested this to him, would
not hear of it. " Oh no," he said ; " the man knew
well enough that I was lying." However this may
be, the Professor's manner changed.

" You are right," he said, " I thought they were
landrail bones, but was not sure till I had one in my
hand. I see, too, that the plucked birds are land-
rails, but there is little light, and I have not often
seen them without their feathers."

"I think," said my father to me, "that Hanky
knew what his friend meant, for he said, ' Panky,
I am very hungry.' "

" Oh, Hanky, Hanky," said the other, modulating
his harsh voice till it was quite pleasant. " Don't
corrupt the poor man."

" Panky, drop that ; we are not at Bridgeford
now ; I am very hungry, and I believe half those
birds are not quails but landrails."

My father saw he was safe. He said, " Perhaps
some of them might prove to be so, sir, under cer-
tain circumstances. I am a poor man, sir."

" Come, come," said Hanky ; and he slipped a
sum equal to about half-a-crown into my father's
hand.

" I do not know what you mean, sir," said my
father, " and if I did, half-a-crown would not be
nearly enough."

" Hanky," said Panky, " you must get this fellow
to give you lessons."

38

CHAPTER IV

MY FATHER OVERHEARS MORE OF HANKY AND
PANKY'S CONVERSATION

My father, schooled under adversity, knew that it
was never well to press advantage too far. He
took the equivalent of five shillings for three brace,
which was somewhat less than the birds would
have been worth when things were as he had
known them. Moreover, he consented to take a
shilling's worth of Musical Bank money, which (as
he has explained in his book) has no appreciable
value outside these banks. He did this because he
knew that it would be respectable to be seen carry-
ing a little Musical Bank money, and also because
he wished to give some of it to the British Museum,
where he knew that this curious coinage was un-
represented. But the coins struck him as being
much thinner and smaller than he had remembered
them.

It was Panky, not Hanky, who had given him
the Musical Bank money. Panky was the greater
humbug of the two, for he would humbug even
himself — a thing, by the way, not very hard to do ;
and yet he was the less successful humbug, for he
could humbug no one who was worth humbugging
— not for long. Hanky's occasional frankness put

39

Erewhon Revisited

people off their guard. He was the mere common,
superficial, perfunctory Professor, who, being a
Professor, would of course profess, but would not
lie more than was in the bond ; he was log-rolled
and log-rolling, but still, in a robust wolfish fashion,
human.

Panky, on the other hand, was hardly human ;
he had thrown himself so earnestly into his work,
that he had become a living lie. If he had had to
play the part of Othello he would have blacked
himself all over, and very likely smothered his
Desdemona in good earnest. Hanky would hardly
have blacked himself behind the ears, and his Des-
demona would have been quite safe.

Philosophers are like quails in the respect that
they can take two or three flights of imagination,
but rarely more without an interval of repose. The
Professors had imagined my father to be a poacher
and a ranger ; they had imagined the quails to be
wanted for Sunday's banquet ; they had imagined
that they imagined (at least Panky had) that they
were about to eat landrails ; they were now ex-
hausted, and cowered down into the grass of their
ordinary conversation, paying no more attention to
my father than if he had been a log. He, poor
man, drank in every word they said, while seem-
ingly intent on nothing but his quails, each one of
which he cut up with a knife borrowed from
Hanky. Two had been plucked already, so he laid
these at once upon the clear embers.

" I do not know what we are to do with our-
40

The Professors Converse

selves," said Hanky, "till Sunday. To-day is
Thursday — it is the twenty-ninth, is it not ? Yes,
of course it is — Sunday is the first. Besides, it is
on our permit. To-morrow we can rest ; what, I
wonder, can we do on Saturday ? But the others
will be here then, and we can tell them about the
statues."

" Yes, but mind you do not blurt out anything
about the landrails."

" I think we may tell Dr. Downie."

"Tell nobody," said Panky.

They then talked about the statues, concerning
which it was plain that nothing was known. But
my father soon broke in upon their conversation
with the first instalment of quails, which a few
minutes had sufficed to cook.

" What a delicious bird a quail is," said Hanky.

"Landrail, Hanky, landrail," said the other re-
proachfully.

Having finished the first birds in a very few
minutes they returned to the statues.

"Old Mrs. Nosnibor," said Panky, "says the Sun-
child told her they were symbolic of ten tribes who
had incurred the displeasure of the sun, his father."

I make no comment on my father's feelings.

"Of the sun! his fiddlesticks' ends," retorted
Hanky. " He never called the sun his father.
Besides, from all I have heard about him, I take it
he was a precious idiot."

" O Hanky, Hanky ! you will wreck the whole
thing if you ever allow yourself to talk in that way."

41

Erewhon Revisited

" You are more likely to wreck it yourself, Panky,
by never doing so. People like being deceived,
but they like also to have an inkling of their own
deception, and you never inkle them."

"The Queen," said Panky, returning to the sta-
tues, " sticks to it that ..."

" Here comes another bird," interrupted Hanky ;
"never mind about the Queen."

The bird was soon eaten, whereon Panky again
took up his parable about the Queen.

"The Queen says they are connected with the
cult of the ancient Goddess Kiss-me-quick."

" What if they are ? But the Queen sees Kiss-me-
quick in everything. Another quail, if you please,
Mr. Ranger."

My father brought up another bird almost di-
rectly. Silence while it was being eaten.

"Talking of the Sunchild," said Panky; "did you
ever see him ? "

" Never set eyes on him, and hope I never shall."

And so on till the last bird was eaten.

"Fellow," said Panky, "fetch some more wood;
the fire is nearly dead."

" I can find no more, sir," said my father, who
was afraid lest some genuine ranger might be at-
tracted by the light, and was determined to let it go
out as soon as he had done cooking.

" Never mind," said Hanky, " the moon will be
up soon."

"And now, Hanky," said Panky, "tell me what

you propose to say on Sunday. I suppose you

42

The Professors Converse

have pretty well made up your mind about it by
this time."

" Pretty nearly. I shall keep it much on the
usual lines. I shall dwell upon the benighted state
from which the Sunchild rescued us, and shall show
how the Musical Banks, by at once taking up the
movement, have been the blessed means of its now
almost universal success. I shall talk about the
immortal glory shed upon Sunch'ston by the Sun-
child's residence in the prison, and wind up with
the Sunchild Evidence Society, and an earnest
appeal for funds to endow the canonries required
for the due service of the temple."

" Temple ! what temple ? " groaned my father
inwardly.

"And what are you going to do about the four
black and white horses ? "

" Stick to them, of course — unless I make them
six."

" I really do not see why they might not have
been horses."

" I dare say you do not," returned the other drily,
" but they were black and white storks, and you
know that as well as I do. Still, they have caught
on, and they are in the altar-piece, prancing and
curvetting magnificently, so I shall trot them out."

"Altar-piece! Altar-piece!" again groaned my
father inwardly.

He need not have groaned, for when he came to
see the so-called altar-piece he found that the table
above which it was placed had nothing in common

43

Erewhon Revisited

with the altar in a Christian church. It was a mere
table, on which were placed two bowls full of
Musical Bank coins ; two cashiers, who sat on
either side of it, dispensed a few of these to all
comers, while there was a box in front of it wherein
people deposited coin of the realm according to
their will or ability. The idea of sacrifice was not
contemplated, and the position of the table, as well
as the name given to it, was an instance of the way
in which the Erewhonians had caught names and
practices from my father, without understanding
what they either were or meant. So, again, when
Professor Hanky had spoken of canonries, he had
none but the vaguest idea of what a canonry is.

I may add further that as a boy my father had
had his Bible well drilled into him, and never for-
got it. Hence biblical passages and expressions
had been often in his mouth, as the effect of mere
unconscious cerebration. The Erewhonians had
caught many of these, sometimes corrupting them
so that they were hardly recognizable. Things
that he remembered having said were continually
meeting him during the few days of his second
visit, and it shocked him deeply to meet some
gross travesty of his own words, or of words more
sacred than his own, and yet to be unable to cor-
rect it. "I wonder," he said to me, "that no one
has ever hit on this as a punishment for the damned
in Hades."

Let me now return to Professor Hanky, whom
I fear that I have left too long.

44

The Professors Converse

" And of course," he continued, " I shall say all
sorts of pretty things about the Mayoress — for I sup-
pose we must not even think of her as Yram now."

"The Mayoress," replied Panky, "is a very
dangerous woman ; see how she stood out about
the way in which the Sunchild had worn his
clothes before they gave him the then Erewhonian
dress. Besides, she is a sceptic at heart, and so
is that precious son of hers."

" She was quite right," said Hanky, with some-
thing of a snort. " She brought him his dinner
while he was still wearing the clothes he came in,
and if men do not notice how a man wears his
clothes, women do. Besides, there are many living
who saw him wear them."

"Perhaps," said Panky, "but we should never
have talked the King over if we had not humoured
him on this point. Yram nearly wrecked us by
her obstinacy. If we had not frightened her, and
if your study, Hanky, had not happened to have
been burned . . ."

" Come, come, Panky, no more of that."

" Of course I do not doubt that it was an acci-
dent ; nevertheless if your study had not been
accidentally burned, on the very night the clothes
were entrusted to you for earnest, patient, careful,
scientific investigation — and Yram very nearly
burned too — we should never have carried it
through. See what work we had to get the King
to allow the way in which the clothes were worn
to be a matter of opinion, not dogma. What a

45

Erewhon Revisited

pity it is that the the clothes were not burned
before the King's tailor had copied them."

Hanky laughed heartily enough. "Yes," he said,
" it was touch and go. Why, I wonder, could not
the Queen have put the clothes on a dummy that
would show back from front ? As soon as it was
brought into the council chamber the King jumped
to a conclusion, and we had to bundle both dummy
and Yram out of the royal presence, for neither
she nor the King would budge an inch.

Even Panky smiled. " What could we do ?
The common people almost worship Yram ; and so
does her husband, though her fair-haired eldest son
was born barely seven months after marriage. The
people in these parts like to think that the Sun-
child's blood is in the country, and yet they swear
through thick and thin that he is the Mayor's duly
begotten offspring — Faugh ! Do you think they
would have stood his being jobbed into the ranger-
ship by any one else but Yram ? "

My father's feelings may be imagined, but I will
not here interrupt the Professors.

"Well, well," said Hanky; "for men must rob

and women must job so long as the world goes on.

I did the best I could. The King would never

have embraced Sunchildism if I had not told him

he was right ; then, when satisfied that we agreed

with him, he yielded to popular prejudice and

allowed the question to remain open. One of his

Royal Professors was to wear the clothes one way,

and the other the other."

46

The Professors Converse

" My way of wearing them," said Panky, " is much
the most convenient."

" Not a bit of it," said Hanky warmly. On this
the two Professors fell out, and the discussion grew
so hot that my father interfered by advising them
not to talk so loud lest another ranger should hear
them. "You know," he said, "there are a good
many landrail bones lying about, and it might be
awkward."

The Professors hushed at once. " By the way,"
said Panky, after a pause, " it is very strange about
those footprints in the snow. The man had evi-
dently walked round the statues two or three times,
as though they were strange to him, and he had
certainly come from the other side."

" It was one of the rangers," said Hanky im-
patiently, " who had gone a little beyond the statues,
and come back again."

11 Then we should have seen his footprints as he
went. I am glad I measured them."

" There is nothing in it ; but what were your
measurements ? "

"Eleven inches by four and a half; nails on the
soles ; one nail missing on the right foot and two on
the left." Then, turning to my father quickly, he said,
" My man, allow me to have a look at your boots."

"Nonsense, Panky, nonsense !"

Now my father by this time was wondering
whether he should not set upon these two men,
kill them if he could, and make the best of his way
back, but he had still a card to play.

47

Erewhon Revisited

" Certainly, sir," said he, "but I should tell you
that they are not my boots."

He took off his right boot and handed it to
Panky.

" Exactly so ! Eleven inches by four and a half,
and one nail missing. And now, Mr. Ranger, will
you be good enough to explain how you became
possessed of that boot. You need not show me
the other." And he spoke like an examiner who
was confident that he could floor his examinee in
viva voce.

"You know our orders," answered my father,
"you have seen them on your permit. I met one
of those foreign devils from the other side, of
whom we have had more than one lately ; he came
from out of the clouds that hang higher up, and
as he had no permit and could not speak a word
of our language, I gripped him, flung him, and
strangled him. Thus far I was only obeying
orders, but seeing how much better his boots were
than mine, and finding that they would fit me, I
resolved to keep them. You may be sure I
should not have done so if I had known there
was snow on the top of the pass."

" He could not invent that," said Hanky ; " it is
plain he has not been up to the statues."

Panky was staggered. " And of course," said
he ironically, "you took nothing from this poor
wretch except his boots."

" Sir," said my father, " I will make a clean

breast of everything. I flung his body, his clothes,

48

The Professors Converse

and my own old boots into the pool ; but I kept
his blanket, some things he used for cooking, and
some strange stuff that looks like dried leaves, as
well as a small bag of something which I believe
is gold. I thought I could sell the lot to some
dealer in curiosities who would ask no questions."

" And what, pray, have you done with all these
things ? "

" They are here, sir." And as he spoke he dived
into the wood, returning with the blanket, billy,
pannikin, tea, and the little bag of nuggets, which
he had kept accessible.

"This is very strange," said Hanky, who was
beginning to be afraid of my father when he
learned that he sometimes killed people.

Here the Professors talked hurriedly to one
another in a tongue which my father could not
understand, but which he felt sure was the hypo-
thetical language of which he has spoken in his

book.

Presently Hanky said to my father quite civilly,
" And what, my good man, do you propose to do
with all these things ? I should tell you at once
that what you take to be gold is nothing of the
kind ; it is a base metal, hardly, if at all, worth more
than copper."

« I have had enough of them ; to-morrow morn-
ing I shall take them with me to the Blue Pool,
and drop them into it."

"It is a pity you should do that," said Hanky
musingly : " the things are interesting as curiosi-

49 D

Erewhon Revisited

ties, and — and — and — what will you take for
them?"

" I could not do it, sir," answered my father.

" I would not do it, no, not for " and he

named a sum equivalent to about five pounds of
our money. For he wanted Erewhonian money,
and thought it worth his while to sacrifice his
ten pounds' worth of nuggets in order to get a
supply of current coin.

Hanky tried to beat him down, assuring
him that no curiosity dealer would give half as
much, and my father so far yielded as to take
.£4, ios. in silver, which, as I have already ex-
plained, would not be worth more than half a
sovereign in gold. At this figure a bargain was
struck, and the Professors paid up without offering
him a single Musical Bank coin. They wanted
to include the boots in the purchase, but here my
father stood out.

But he could not stand out as regards another
matter, which caused him some anxiety. Panky
insisted that my father should give them a receipt
for the money, and there was an altercation be-
tween the Professors on this point, much longer
than I can here find space to give. Hanky argued
that a receipt was useless, inasmuch as it would
be ruin to my father ever to refer to the subject
again. Panky, however, was anxious, not lest
my father should again claim the money, but
(though he did not say so outright) lest Hanky

should claim the whole purchase as his own. In

So

The Professors Converse

the end Panky, for a wonder, carried the day,
and a receipt was drawn up to the effect that
the undersigned acknowledged to have received
from Professors Hanky and Panky the sum of
^4, ios. (I translate the amount), as joint pur-
chasers of certain pieces of yellow ore, a blanket,
and sundry articles found without an owner in
the King's preserves. This paper was dated, as
the permit had been, XIX. xii. 29.

My father, generally so ready, was at his wits'
end for a name, and could think of none but
Mr. Nosnibor's. Happily, remembering that this
gentleman had also been called Senoj — a name
common enough in Erewhon — he signed himself
" Senoj, Under-ranger."

Panky was now satisfied. "We will put it in
the bag," he said, " with the pieces of yellow
ore."

u Put it where you like," said Hanky con-
temptuously ; and into the bag it was put.

When all was now concluded, my father laugh-
ingly said, " If you have dealt unfairly by me, I for-
give you. My motto is, ' Forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive them that trespass against us.' "

" Repeat those last words," said Panky eagerly.
My father was alarmed at his manner, but thought
it safer to repeat them.

" You hear that, Hanky ? I am convinced ; I
have not another word to say. The man is a
true Erewhonian ; he has our corrupt reading of
the Sunchild's prayer."

51

Erewhon Revisited

" Please explain."

" Why, can you not see ? " said Panky, who
was by way of being great at conjectural emenda-
tions. " Can you not see how impossible it is for
the Sunchild, or any of the people to whom he
declared (as we now know provisionally) that he
belonged, could have made the forgiveness of his
own sins depend on the readiness with which
he forgave other people ? No man in his senses
would dream of such a thing. It would be asking
a supposed all-powerful being not to forgive his
sins at all, or at best to forgive them imperfectly.
No; Yram got it wrong. She mistook 'but do
not ' for ' as we.' The sound of the words is
very much alike ; the correct reading should
obviously be, ' Forgive us our trespasses, but do
not forgive them that trespass against us.' This
makes sense, and turns an impossible prayer into
one that goes straight to the heart of every one
of us." Then, turning to my father, he said,
" You can see this, my man, can you not, as
soon as it is pointed out to you ? "

My father said that he saw it now, but had always
heard the words as he had himself spoken them.

" Of course you have, my good fellow, and it is
because of this that I know they never can have
reached you except from an Erewhonian source."

Hanky smiled, snorted, and muttered in an under-
tone, " I shall begin to think that this fellow is a
foreign devil after all."

"And now, gentlemen," said my father, "the
52

The Professors Converse

moon is risen. I must be after the quails at day-
break ; I will therefore go to the ranger's shelter "
(a shelter, by the way, which existed only in my
father's invention), "and get a couple of hours'
sleep, so as to be both close to the quail-ground
and fresh for running. You are so near the
boundary of the preserves that you will not want
your permit further ; no one will meet you, and
should any one do so, you need only give your
names and say that you have made a mistake. You
will have to give it up to-morrow at the Ranger's
office ; it will save you trouble if I collect it now,
and give it up when I deliver my quails.

" As regards the curiosities, hide them as you best
can outside the limits. I recommend you to carry
them at once out of the forest, and rest beyond the
limits rather than here. You can then recover
them whenever, and in whatever way, you may
find convenient. But I hope you will say nothing
about any foreign devil's having come over on to
this side. Any whisper to this effect unsettles
people's minds, and they are too much unsettled
already ; hence our orders to kill any one from
over there at once, and to tell no one but the Head
Ranger. I was forced by you, gentlemen, to dis-
obey these orders in self-defence ; I must trust your
generosity to keep what I have told you secret. I
shall, of course, report it to the Head Ranger. And
now, if you think proper, you can give me up your
permit."

All this was so plausible that the Professors gave
53

Erewhon Revisited

up their permit without a word but thanks. They
bundled their curiosities hurriedly into "the poor
foreign devil's " blanket, reserving a more careful
packing till they were out of the preserves. They
wished my father a very good night, and all success
with his quails in the morning ; they thanked him
again for the care he had taken of them in the
matter of the landrails, and Panky even went so
far as to give him a few Musical Bank coins, which
he gratefully accepted. They then started off in the
direction of Sunch'ston.

My father gathered up the remaining quails, some
of which he meant to eat in the morning, while the
others he would throw away as soon as he could
find a safe place. He turned towards the moun-
tains, but before he had gone a dozen yards he
heard a voice, which he recognised as Panky's,
shouting after him, and saying —

" Mind you do not forget the true reading of the
Sunchild's prayer."

"You are an old fool," shouted my father in
English, knowing that he could hardly be heard,
still less understood, and thankful to relieve his
feelings.

54

CHAPTER V

MY FATHER MEETS A SON, OF WHOSE EXISTENCE
HE WAS IGNORANT, AND STRIKES A BARGAIN
WITH HIM

The incidents recorded in the two last chapters had
occupied about two hours, so that it was nearly
midnight before my father could begin to retrace
his steps and make towards the camp that he had
left that morning. This was necessary, for he could
not go any further in a costume that he now knew
to be forbidden. At this hour no ranger was likely
to meet him before he reached the statues, and by
making a push for it he could return in time to
cross the limits of the preserves before the Pro-
fessors' permit had expired. If challenged, he must
brazen it out that he was one or other of the
persons therein named.

Fatigued though he was, he reached the statues,
as near as he could guess, at about three in the
morning. What little wind there had been was
warm, so that the tracks, which the Professors must
have seen shortly after he had made them, had
disappeared. The statues looked very weird in the
moonlight but they were not chanting

While ascending, he pieced together the informa-
tion he had picked up from the Professors. Plainly,
the Sunchild, or child of the sun, was none other

55

Erewhon Revisited

than himself, and the new name of Coldharbour
was doubtless intended to commemorate the fact
that this was the first town he had reached in
Erewhon. Plainly, also, he was supposed to be of
superhuman origin — his flight in the balloon having
been not unnaturally believed to be miraculous.
The Erewhonians had for centuries been effacing
all knowledge of their former culture ; archaeo-
logists, indeed, could still glean a little from
museums, and from volumes hard to come by,
and still harder to understand ; but archaeologists
were few, and even though they had made re-
searches (which they may or may not have done),
their labours had never reached the masses. What
wonder, then, that the mushroom spawn of myth,
ever present in an atmosphere highly charged with
ignorance, had germinated in a soil so favourably
prepared for its reception ?

He saw it all now. It was twenty years next
Sunday since he and my mother had eloped.
That was the meaning of XIX. xii. 29. They had
made a new era, dating from the day of his return
to the palace of the sun with a bride who was
doubtless to unite the Erewhonian nature with
that of the sun. The New Year, then, would date
from Sunday, December 7, which would therefore
become XX. i. 1. The Thursday, now nearly if
not quite over, being only two days distant from
the end of a month of thirty-one days, which was
also the last of the year, would be XIX. xii. 29,

as on the Professors' permit.

56

Father and Son

I should like to explain here what will appear
more clearly on a later page — I mean, that the
Erewhonians, according to their new system, do
not believe the sun to be a god except as regards
this world and his other planets. My father had
told them a little about astronomy, and had assured
them that all the fixed stars were suns like our
own, with planets revolving round them, which
were probably tenanted by intelligent living beings,
however unlike they might be to ourselves. From
this they evolved the theory that the sun was the
ruler of this planetary system, and that he must
be personified, as they had personified the air-god,
the gods of time and space, hope, justice, and the
other deities mentioned in my father's book. They
retain their old belief in the actual existence of
these gods, but they now make them all subordi-
nate to the sun. The nearest approach they make
to our own conception of God is to say that He
is the ruler over all the suns throughout the uni-
verse— the suns being to Him much as our planets
and their denizens are to our own sun. They
deny that He takes more interest in one sun and
its system than in another. All the suns with
their attendant planets are supposed to be equally
His children, and He deputes to each sun the super-
vision and protection of its own system. Hence
they say that though we may pray to the air-god,
&c, and even to the sun, we must not pray to
God. We may be thankful to Him for watching
over the suns, but we must not go further.

57

Erewhon Revisited

Going back to my father's reflections, he per-
ceived that the Erewhonians had not only adopted
our calendar, as he had repeatedly explained it to
the Nosnibors, but had taken our week as well,
and were making Sunday a high day, just as we
do. Next Sunday, in commemoration of the
twentieth year after his ascent, they were about
to dedicate a temple to him ; in this there was
to be a picture showing himself and his earthly
bride on their heavenward journey, in a chariot
drawn by four black and white horses — which,
however, Professor Hanky had positively affirmed
to have been only storks.

Here I interrupted my father. " But were there,"
I said, " any storks ? "

" Yes," he answered. " As soon as I heard
Hanky's words I remembered that a flight of some
four or five of the large storks so common in
Erewhon during the summer months had been
wheeling high aloft in one of those aerial dances
that so much delight them. I had quite forgotten
it, but it came back to me at once that these crea-
tures, attracted doubtless by what they took to be
an unknown kind of bird, swooped down towards
the balloon and circled round it like so many
satellites to a heavenly body. 1 was fearful lest
they should strike at it with their long and formid-
able beaks, in which case all would have been soon
over ; either they were afraid, or they had satisfied
their curiosity — at any rate, they let us alone ; but
they kept with us till we were well away from the

58

Father and Son

capital. Strange, how completely this incident had
escaped me."

I return to my father's thoughts as he made his
way back to his old camp.

As for the reversed position of Professor Panky's
clothes, he remembered having given his own old
ones to the Queen, and having thought that she
might have got a better dummy on which to display
them than the headless scarecrow, which, however,
he supposed was all her ladies-in-waiting could lay
their hands on at the moment. If that dummy had
never been replaced, it was perhaps not very strange
that the King could not at the first glance tell back
from front, and if he did not guess right at first,
there was little chance of his changing, for his first
ideas were apt to be his last. But he must find out
more about this.

Then how about the watch ? Had their views
about machinery also changed ? Or was there an
exception made about any machine that he had
himself carried ?

Yram too. She must have been married not
long after she and he had parted. So she was now
wife to the Mayor, and was evidently able to have
things pretty much her own way in Sunch'ston, as
he supposed he must now call it. Thank heaven
she was prosperous ! It was interesting to know
that she was at heart a sceptic, as was also her light-
haired son, now Head Ranger. And that son ?
Just twenty years of age ! Born seven months
after marriage ! Then the Mayor doubtless had

59

Erewhon Revisited

light hair too ; but why did not those wretches say
in which month Yram was married ? If she had
married soon after he had left, this was why he had
not been sent for or written to. Pray heaven it
was so. As for current gossip, people would talk,
and if the lad was well begotten, what could it
matter to them whose son he was ? " But," thought
my father, " I am glad I did not meet him on my
way down. I had rather have been killed by some
one else."

Hanky and Panky again. He remembered
Bridgeford as the town where the Colleges of
Unreason had been most rife ; he had visited it,
but he had forgotten that it was called "The city
of the people who are above suspicion." Its Pro-
fessors were evidently going to muster in great
force on Sunday ; if two of them had robbed him,
he could forgive them, for the information he had
gleaned from them had furnished him with a. pied a
terre. Moreover, he had got as much Erewhonian
money as he should want, for he had resolved to
retrace his steps immediately after seeing the temple
dedicated to himself. He knew the danger he
should run in returning over the preserves without
a permit, but his curiosity was so great that he re-
solved to risk it.

Soon after he had passed the statues he began to
descend, and it being now broad day, he did so by
leaps and bounds, for the ground was not preci-
pitous. He reached his old camp soon after five —

this, at any rate, was the hour at which he set his

60

Father and Son

watch on finding that it had run down during his
absence. There was now no reason why he should
not take it with him, so he put it in his pocket.
The parrots had attacked his saddle-bags, saddle,
and bridle, as they were sure to do, but they had
not got inside the bags. He took out his English
clothes and put them on — stowing his bags of
gold in various pockets, but keeping his Erewhonian
money in the one that was most accessible. He
put his Erewhonian dress back into the saddle-
bags, intending to keep it as a curiosity ; he also
refreshed the dye upon his hands, face, and hair ;
he lit himself a fire, made tea, cooked and ate two
brace of quails, which he had plucked while walk-
ing so as to save time, and then flung himself on to
the ground to snatch an hour's very necessary rest.
When he woke he found he had slept two hours,
not one, which was perhaps as well, and by eight
he began to reascend the pass.

He reached the statues about noon, for he
allowed himself not a moment's rest. This time
there was a stiffish wind, and they were chanting
lustily. He passed them with all speed, and had
nearly reached the place where he had caught the
quails, when he saw a man in a dress which he
guessed at once to be a ranger's, but which,
strangely enough, seeing that he was in the King's
employ, was not reversed. My father's heart beat
fast ; he got out his permit and held it open in his
hand, then with a smiling face he went towards the

Ranger, who was standing his ground.

61

Erewhon Revisited

" I believe you are the Head Ranger," said my
father, who saw that he was still smooth-faced and
had light hair. " I am Professor Panky, and here is
my permit. My brother Professor has been prevented
from coming with me, and, as you see, I am alone."

My father had professed to pass himself off as
Panky, for he had rather gathered that Hanky was
the better known man of the two.

While the youth was scrutinising the permit,
evidently with suspicion, my father took stock of
him, and saw his own past self in him too plainly —
knowing all he knew — to doubt whose son he was.
He had the greatest difficulty in hiding his emotion,
for the lad was indeed one of whom any father
might be proud. He longed to be able to embrace
him and claim him for what he was, but this, as he
well knew, might not be. The tears again welled
into his eyes when he told me of the struggle with
himself that he had then had.

" Don't be jealous, my dearest boy," he said to
me. " I love you quite as dearly as I love him, or
better, but he was sprung upon me so suddenly,
and dazzled me with his comely debonair face, so
full of youth, and health, and frankness. Did you
see him, he would go straight to your heart, for he
is wonderfully like you in spite of your taking so
much after your poor mother."

I was not jealous ; on the contrary, I longed to

see this youth, and find in him such a brother as I

had often wished to have. But let me return to my

father's story.

62

Father and Son

The young man, after examining the permit,
declared it to be in form, and returned it to my
father, but he eyed him with polite disfavour.

" I suppose," he said, " you have come up, as so
many are doing, from Bridgeford and all over the
country, to the dedication on Sunday."

"Yes," said my father. "Bless me !" he added,
" what a wind you have up here ! How it makes
one's eyes water, to be sure ; " but he spoke with
a cluck in his throat which no wind that blows
can cause.

M Have you met any suspicious characters be-
tween here and the statues ? " asked the youth. " I
came across the ashes of a fire lower down ; there
had been three men sitting for some time round it,
and they had all been eating quails. Here are some
of the bones and feathers, which I shall keep. They
had not been gone more than a couple of hours,
for the ashes were still warm ; they are getting
bolder and bolder — who would have thought they
would dare to light a fire ? I suppose you have
not met any one ; but if you have seen a single
person, let me know."

My father said quite truly that he had met no
one. He then laughingly asked how the youth had
been able to discover as much as he had.

" There were three well-marked forms, and three
separate lots of quail bones hidden in the ashes.
One man had done all the plucking. This is
strange, but I dare say I shall get at it later."

After a little further conversation the Ranger said
63

Erewhon Revisited

he was now going down to Sunch'ston, and, though
somewhat curtly, proposed that he and my father
should walk together.

" By all means," answered my father.

Before they had gone more than a few hundred
yards his companion said, " If you will come with
me a little to the left, I can show you the Blue Pool."

To avoid the precipitous ground over which the
stream here fell, they had diverged to the right,
where they had found a smoother descent ; return-
ing now to the stream, which was about to enter on
a level stretch for some distance, they found them-
selves on the brink of a rocky basin, of no great
size, but very blue, and evidently deep.

"This," said the Ranger, "is where our orders
tell us to fling any foreign devil who comes over
from the other side. I have only been Head
Ranger about nine months, and have not yet had
to face this horrid duty ; but," and here he smiled,
"when I first caught sight of you I thought I
should have to make a beginning. I was very glad
when I saw you had a permit."

"And how many skeletons do you suppose are
lying at the bottom of this pool ?"

" I believe not more than seven or eight in all.

There were three or four about eighteen years

ago, and about the same number of late years ;

one man was flung here only about three months

before I was appointed. I have the full list, with

dates, down in my office, but the rangers never

let people in Sunch'ston know when they have

64

Father and Son

Blue-Pooled any one ; it would unsettle men's
minds, and some of them would be coming up
here in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether
they could find anything on the body."

My father was glad to turn away from this most
repulsive place. After a time he said, "And what
do you good people hereabouts think of next
Sunday's grand doings ? "

Bearing in mind what he had gleaned from the
Professors about the Ranger's opinions, mv fat
gave a slightly ironical turn to his pronunciation
of the words "grand doings." The youth glanced
at him with a quick penetrative look, and laughed
as he said, "The doings will be grand enough.''

"What a fine temple they have built," said my
father. "' I have no: yet seen the picture, but they
say the four black and white horses are magnifi-
cently painted. I saw the Sunchild ascend, but
I saw no horses in the sky, nor anvthing like
horses.''

The youth was much interested. " Did yon
really see him ascend?' he asked; "and what,
pray, do you think it all was : "

"Whatever it was, there were no horses. "

" But there must have been, for, as you of course
know, they have lately found some droppings from
one of them, which have been miraculouslv pre-
served, and they are going to show them next
Sunday in a gold reliquary.

u I know," said my father, who, however, was
learning the fact for the first time. " I have not vet

°5 E

Erewhon Revisited

seen this precious relic, but I think they might have
found something less unpleasant."

" Perhaps they would if they could," replied the
youth, laughing, "but there was nothing else that
the horses could leave. It is only a number of
curiously rounded stones, and not at all like what
they say it is."

"Well, well," continued my father, "but relic
or no relic, there are many who, while they fully
recognise the value of the Sunchild's teaching,
dislike these cock and bull stories as blasphemy
against God's most blessed gift of reason. There
are many in Bridgeford who hate this story of the
horses."

The youth was now quite reassured. " So there
are here, sir," he said warmly, " and who hate the
Sunchild too. If there is such a hell as he used
to talk about to my mother, we doubt not but that
he will be cast into its deepest fires. See how he
has turned us all upside down. But we dare not
say what we think. There is no courage left in
Erewhon."

Then waxing calmer he said, " It is you Bridge-
ford people and your Musical Banks that have
done it all. The Musical Bank Managers saw that
the people were falling away from them. Finding
that the vulgar believed this foreign devil Higgs —
for he gave this name to my mother when he was in

prison — finding that But you know all this as

well as I do. How can you Bridgeford Professors

pretend to believe about these horses, and about

66

Father and Son

the Sunchild's being son to the sun, when all the
time you know there is no truth in it ? "

" My son — for considering the difference in our
ages I may be allowed to call you so — we at Bridge-
ford are much like you at Sunch'ston ; we dare not
always say what we think. Nor would it be wise
to do so, when we should not be listened to. This
fire must burn itself out, for it has got such hold
that nothing can either stay or turn it. Even
though Higgs himself were to return and tell it
from the house-tops that he was a mortal — ay,
and a very common one — he would be killed, but
not believed."

" Let him come ; let him show himself, speak
out and die, if the people choose to kill him. In
that case I would forgive him, accept him for my
father, as silly people sometimes say he is, and
honour him to my dying day."

"Would that be a bargain?" said my father,
smiling in spite of emotion so strong that he could
hardly bring the words out of his mouth.

" Yes, it would," said the youth doggedly.

"Then let me shake hands with you on his be-
half, and let us change the conversation."

He took my father's hand, doubtfully and some-
what disdainfully, but he did not refuse it.

67

CHAPTER VI

FURTHER CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER
AND SON — THE PROFESSORS* HOARD

It is one thing to desire a conversation to be
changed, and another to change it. After some
little silence my father said, " And may I ask what
name your mother gave you ? "

" My name," he answered, laughing, " is George,
and I wish it were some other, for it is the first
name of that arch-impostor Higgs. I hate it as I
hate the man who owned it."

My father said nothing, but he hid his face in his
hands.

" Sir," said the other, " I fear you are in some
distress."

" You remind me," replied my father, " of a son
who was stolen from me when he was a child. I
searched for him during many years, and at last
fell in with him by accident, to find him all the
heart of father could wish. But alas ! he did not
take kindly to me as I to him, and after two days
he left me ; nor shall I ever again see him."

"Then, sir, had I not better leave you ?"

" No, stay with me till your road takes you else-
where ; for though I cannot see my son, you are so

like him that I could almost fancy he is with me.

68

Father and Son Part

And now — for I shall show no more weakness —
you say your mother knew the Sunchild, as I am
used to call him. Tell me what kind of a man she
found him."

" She liked him well enough in spite of his being
a little silly. She does not believe he ever called
himself child of the sun. He used to say he had
a father in heaven to whom he prayed, and who
could hear him ; but he said that all of us, my
mother as much as he, have this unseen father.
My mother does not believe he meant doing us
any harm, but only that he wanted to get himself
and Mrs. Nosnibor's younger daughter out of the
country. As for there having been anything super-
natural about the balloon, she will have none of it ;
she says that it was some machine which he knew
how to make, but which we have lost the art of
making, as we have of many another."

" This is what she says amongst ourselves, but
in public she confirms all that the Musical Bank
Managers say about him. She is afraid of them.
You know, perhaps, that Professor Hanky, whose
name I see on your permit, tried to burn her alive?"

"Thank heaven !" thought my father, "that I am
Panky ;" but aloud he said, "Oh, horrible ! horrible !
I cannot believe this even of Hanky."

" He denies it, and we say we believe him ; he was

most kind and attentive to my mother during all

the rest of her stay in Bridgeford. He and she

parted excellent friends, but I know what she

thinks. I shall be sure to see him while he is

69

Erewhon Revisited

in Sunch'ston, better I shall have to be civil to him
but it makes me sick to think of it."

"When shall you see him ?" said my father, who
was alarmed at learning that Hanky and the Ranger
were likely to meet. Who could tell but that he
might see Panky too ?

" I have been away from home a fortnight, and
shall not be back till late on Saturday night. I do
not suppose I shall see him before Sunday."

"That will do," thought my father, who at that
moment deemed that nothing would matter to him
much when Sunday was over. Then, turning to the
Ranger, he said, " I gather, then, that your mother
does not think so badly of the Sunchild after all ? "

" She laughs at him sometimes, but if any of us
boys and girls say a word against him we get
snapped up directly. My mother turns every one
round her ringer. Her word is law in Sunch'ston ;
every one obeys her ; she has faced more than one
mob, and quelled them when my father could not
do so."

" I can believe all you say of her. What other
children has she besides yourself ? "

" We are four sons, of whom the youngest is now
fourteen, and three daughters."

" May all health and happiness attend her and
you, and all of you, henceforth and for ever," and
my father involuntarily bared his head as he spoke.

" Sir," said the youth, impressed by the fervency

of my father's manner, " I thank you, but you do

not talk as Bridgeford Professors generally do, so

70

Father and Son Part

far as I have seen or heard them. Why do you
wish us all well so very heartily ? Is it because
you think I am like your son, or is there some
other reason ? "

" It is not my son alone that you resemble," said
my father tremulously, for he knew he was going
too far. He carried it off by adding, " You re-
semble all who love truth and hate lies, as I do."

" Then, sir," said the youth gravely, " you much
belie your reputation. And now I must leave you
for another part of the preserves, where I think it
likely that last night's poachers may now be, and
where I shall pass the night in watching for them.
You may want your permit for a few miles further,
so I will not take it. Neither need you give it up
at Sunch'ston. It is dated, and will be useless
after this evening."

With this he strode off into the forest, bowing
politely but somewhat coldly, and without encour-
aging my father's half proffered hand.

My father turned sad and unsatisfied away.

" It serves me right," he said to himself ; " he
ought never to have been my son ; and yet, if such
men can be brought by hook or by crook into the
world, surely the world should not ask questions
about the bringing. How cheerless everything
looks now that he has left me."

By this time it was three o'clock, and in another
few minutes my father came upon the ashes of the

7i

Erewhon Revisited

fire beside which he and the Professors had supped
on the preceding evening. It was only some
eighteen hours since they had come upon him, and
yet what an age it seemed ! It was well the Ranger
had left him, for though my father, of course,
would have known nothing about either fire or
poachers, it might have led to further falsehood,
and by this time he had become exhausted — not to
say, for the time being, sick of lies altogether.

He trudged slowly on, without meeting a soul,
until he came upon some stones that evidently
marked the limits of the preserves. When he had
got a mile or so beyond these, he struck a narrow
and not much frequented path, which he was sure
would lead him towards Sunch'ston, and soon after-
wards, seeing a huge old chestnut tree some thirty
or forty yards from the path itself, he made towards
it and flung himself on the ground beneath its
branches. There were abundant signs that he was
nearing farm lands and homesteads, but there was
no one about, and if any one saw him there was
nothing in his appearance to arouse suspicion.

He determined, therefore, to rest here till hunger
should wake him, and drive him into Sunch'ston,
which, however, he did not wish to reach till dusk
if he could help it. He meant to buy a valise and
a few toilette necessaries before the shops should
close, and then engage a bedroom at the least fre-
quented inn he could find that looked fairly clean
and comfortable.

He slept till nearly six, and on waking gathered

72

The Professors' Hoard

his thoughts together. He could not shake his
newly found son from out of them, but there was
no good in dwelling upon him now, and he turned
his thoughts to the Professors. How, he wondered,
were they getting on, and what had they done with
the things they had bought from him ?

" How delightful it would be," he said to himself,
" if I could find where they have hidden their hoard,
and hide it somewhere else."

He tried to project his mind into those of the
Professors, as though they were a team of straying
bullocks whose probable action he must determine
before he set out to look for them.

On reflection, he concluded that the hidden
property was not likely to be far from the spot on
which he now was. The Professors would wait
till they had got some way down towards Sunch'-
ston, so as to have readier access to their property
when they wanted to remove it ; but when they
came upon a path and other signs that inhabited
dwellings could not be far distant, they would
begin to look out for a hiding-place. And they
would take pretty well the first that came. "Why,
bless my heart," he exclaimed, "this tree is hollow ;

I wonder whether " and on looking up he

saw an innocent little strip of the very tough
fibrous leaf commonly used while green as string,
or even rope, by the Erewhonians. The plant
that makes this leaf is so like the ubiquitous New
Zealand Phormium tenax, or flax, as it is there
called, that I shall speak of it as flax in future, as

73

Erewhon Revisited

indeed I have already done without explanation
on an earlier page ; for this plant grows on both
sides of the great range. The piece of flax, then,
which my father caught sight of was fastened, at
no great height from the ground, round the branch
of a strong sucker that had grown from the roots
of the chestnut tree, and going thence for a couple
of feet or so towards the place where the parent
tree became hollow, it disappeared into the cavity
below. My father had little difficulty in swarming
the sucker till he reached the bough on to which
the flax was tied, and soon found himself hauling
up something from the bottom of the tree. In less
time than it takes to tell the tale he saw his own
familiar red blanket begin to show above the
broken edge of the hollow, and in another second
there was a clinkum-clankum as the bundle fell
upon the ground. This was caused by the billy
and the pannikin, which were wrapped inside the
blanket. As for the blanket, it had been tied
tightly at both ends, as well as at several points
between, and my father inwardly complimented
the Professors on the neatness with which they had
packed and hidden their purchase. " But," he
said to himself with a laugh, " I think one of them
must have got on the other's back to reach that
bough."

"Of course," thought he, "they will have taken
the nuggets with them." And yet he had seemed
to hear a dumping as well as a clinkum-clankum.
He undid the blanket, carefully untying every knot

74

The Professors' Hoard

and keeping the flax. When he had unrolled it, he
found to his very pleasurable surprise that the
pannikin was inside the billy, and the nuggets with
the receipt inside the pannikin. The paper con-
taining the tea having been torn, was wrapped up
in a handkerchief marked with Hanky's name.

41 Down, conscience, down ! " he exclaimed as he
transferred the nuggets, receipt, and handkerchief
to his own pocket. " Eye of my soul that you are !
if you offend me I must pluck you out." His con-
science feared him and said nothing. As for the
tea, he left it in its torn paper.

He then put the billy, pannikin, and tea, back
again inside the blanket, which he tied neatly up,
tie for tie with the Professor's own flax, leaving no
sign of any disturbance. He again swarmed the
sucker, till he reached the bough to which the
blanket and its contents had been made fast, and
having attached the bundle, he dropped it back
into the hollow of the tree. He did everything
quite leisurely, for the Professors would be sure
to wait till nightfall before coming to fetch their
property away.

u If I take nothing but the nuggets," he argued,
" each of the Professors will suspect the other of
having conjured them into his own pocket while
the bundle was being made up. As for the hand-
kerchief, they must think what they like ; but it
will puzzle Hanky to know why Panky should have
been so anxious for a receipt, if he meant stealing
the nuggets. Let them muddle it out their own way."

75

Erewhon Revisited

Reflecting further, he concluded, perhaps rightly,
that they had left the nuggets where he had found
them, because neither could trust the other not to
filch a few, if he had them in his own possession,
and they could not make a nice division without
a pair of scales. "At any rate," he said to himself,
"there will be a pretty quarrel when they find
them gone."

Thus charitably did he brood over things that
were not to happen. The discovery of the Pro-
fessors' hoard had refreshed him almost as much
as his sleep had done, and it being now past seven,
he lit his pipe — which, however, he smoked as
furtively as he had done when he was a boy at
school, for he knew not whether smoking had yet
become an Erewhonian virtue or no — and walked
briskly on towards Sunch'ston.

76

CHAPTER VII

SIGNS OF THE NEW ORDER OF THINGS CATCH
MY FATHER'S EYE ON EVERY SIDE

He had not gone far before a turn in the path —
now rapidly widening — showed him two high
towers, seemingly some two miles off ; these he felt
sure must be at Sunch'ston, he therefore stepped
out, lest he should find the shops shut before he
got there.

On his former visit he had seen little of the
town, for he was in prison during his whole stay.
He had had a glimpse of it on being brought there
by the people of the village where he had spent
his first night in Erewhon — a village which he had
seen at some little distance on his right hand, but
which it would have been out of his way to visit,
even if he had wished to do so ; and he had seen
the Museum of old machines, but on leaving the
prison he had been blindfolded. Nevertheless he
felt sure that if the towers had been there he should
have seen them, and rightly guessed that they must
belong to the temple which was to be dedicated to
himself on Sunday.

When he had passed through the suburbs he
found himself in the main street. Space will not
allow me to dwell on more than a few of the things

77

Erewhon Revisited

which caught his eye, and assured him that the
change in Erewhonian habits and opinions had
been even more cataclysmic than he had already
divined. The first important building that he came
to proclaimed itself as the College of Spiritual
Athletics, and in the window of a shop that was
evidently affiliated to the college he saw an an-
nouncement that moral try-your-strengths, suitable
for every kind of ordinary temptation, would be
provided on the shortest notice. Some of those
that aimed at the more common kinds of tempta-
tion were kept in stock, but these consisted chiefly
of trials to the temper. On dropping, for example,
a penny into a slot, you could have a jet of fine
pepper, flour, or brickdust, whichever you might
prefer, thrown on to your face, and thus discover
whether your composure stood in need of further
development or no. My father gathered this from
the writing that was pasted on to the try-your-
strength, but he had no time to go inside the shop
and test either the machine or his own temper.
Other temptations to irritability required the agency
of living people, or at any rate living beings.
Crying children, screaming parrots, a spiteful
monkey, might be hired on ridiculously easy terms.
He saw one advertisement, nicely framed, which
ran as follows: —

" Mrs. Tantrums, Nagger, certificated by the College of
Spiritual Athletics. Terms for ordinary nagging, two
shillings and sixpence per hour. Hysterics extra."

78

The New Order

Then followed a series of testimonials — for
example : —

" Dear Mrs. Tantrums, — I have for years been tortured
with a husband of unusually peevish, irritable temper,
who made my life so intolerable that I sometimes answered
him in a way that led to his using personal violence
towards me. After taking a course of twelve sittings from
you, I found my husband's temper comparatively angelic,
and we have ever since lived together in complete
harmony."

Another was from a husband : —

" Mr. presents his compliments to Mrs. Tantrums,

and begs to assure her that her extra special hysterics
have so far surpassed anything his wife can do, as to
render him callous to those attacks which he had formerly
found so distressing."

There were many others of a like purport, but
time did not permit my father to do more than
glance at them. He contented himself with the
two following, of which the first ran : —

" He did try it at last. A little correction of the right
kind taken at the right moment is invaluable. No more
swearing. No more bad language of any kind. A lamb-
like temper ensured in about twenty minutes, by a single
dose of one of our spiritual indigestion tabloids. In cases
of all the more ordinary moral ailments, from simple lying,
to homicidal mania, in cases again of tendency to hatred,
malice, and uncharitableness ; of atrophy or hypertrophy
of the conscience, of costiveness or diarrhoea of the sym-
pathetic instincts, &c, &c, our spiritual indigestion tabloids
will afford unfailing and immediate relief.

79

Erewhon Revisited

" N.B. — A bottle or two of our Sunchild Cordial will
assist the operation of the tabloids."

The second and last that I can give was as
follows : —

" All else is useless. If you wish to be a social success,
make yourself a good listener. There is no short cut to
this. A would-be listener must learn the rudiments of his
art and go through the mill like other people. If he would
develop a power of suffering fools gladly, he must begin by
suffering them without the gladness. Professor Proser,
ex-straightener, certificated bore, pragmatic or coruscating,
with or without anecdotes, attends pupils at their own
houses. Terms moderate.

" Mrs. Proser, whose success as a professional mind-
dresser is so well-known that lengthened advertisement is
unnecessary, prepares ladies or gentlemen with appropriate
remarks to be made at dinner-parties or at-homes. Mrs. P.
keeps herself well up to date with all the latest scandals."

" Poor, poor, straighteners ! " said my father to
himself. " Alas ! that it should have been my fate
to ruin you — for I suppose your occupation is
gone."

Tearing himself away from the College of Spiritual

Athletics and its affiliated shop, he passed on a few

doors, only to find himself looking in at what was

neither more nor less than a chemist's shop. In

the window there were advertisements which showed

that the practice of medicine was now legal, but my

father could not stay to copy a single one of the

fantastic announcements that a hurried glance

revealed to him.

80

The New Order

It was also plain here, as from the shop already
more fully described, that the edicts against machines
had been repealed, for there were physical try-your-
strengths, as in the other shop there had been moral
ones, and such machines under the old law would
not have been tolerated for a moment.

My father made his purchases just as the last
shops were closing. He noticed that almost all of
them were full of articles labelled " Dedication."
There was Dedication gingerbread, stamped with
a moulded representation of the new temple ; there
were Dedication syrups, Dedication pocket-handker-
chiefs, also shewing the temple, and in one corner
giving a highly idealised portrait of my father him-
self. The chariot and the horses figured largely,
and in the confectioners' shops there were models
of the newly discovered relic — made, so my father
thought, with a little heap of cherries or straw-
berries, smothered in chocolate. Outside one
tailor's shop he saw a flaring advertisement which
can only be translated, " Try our Dedication trou-
sers, price ten shillings and sixpence."

Presently he passed the new temple, but it was
too dark for him to do more than see that it was a
vast fane, and must have cost an untold amount of
money. At every turn he found himself more and
more shocked, as he realised more and more fully
the mischief he had already occasioned, and the
certainty that this was small as compared with that
which would grow up hereafter.

"What," he said to me, very coherently and

Erewhon Revisited

quietly, " was I to do ? I had struck a bargain

with that dear fellow, though he knew not what

I meant, to the effect that I should try to undo

the harm I had done, by standing up before the

people on Sunday and saying who I was. True,

they would not believe me. They would look

at my hair and see it black, whereas it should

be very light. On this they would look no further,

but very likely tear me in pieces then and there.

Suppose that the authorities held a post-morte7ii

examination, and that many who knew me (let

alone that all my measurements and marks were

recorded twenty years ago) identified the body

as mine : would those in power admit that I

was the Sunchild ? Not they. The interests

vested in my being now in the palace of the

sun are too great to allow of my having been

torn to pieces in Sunch'ston, no matter how

truly I had been torn ; the whole thing would

be hushed up, and the utmost that could come

of it would be a heresy which would in time be

crushed.

" On the other hand, what business have I

with ' would be ' or ' would not be ? ' Should

I not speak out, come what may, when I see a

whole people being led astray by those who are

merely exploiting them for their own ends ?

Though I could do but little, ought I not to do

that little ? What did that good fellow's instinct

— so straight from heaven, so true, so healthy —

tell him ? What did my own instinct answer ?

82

The New Order

What would the conscience of any honourable
man answer ? Who can doubt ?

"And yet, is there not reason? and is it not
God-given as much as instinct ? I remember
having heard an anthem in my young days, ' O
where shall wisdom be found ? the deep saith it
is not in me.' As the singers kept on repeating
the question, I kept on saying sorrowfully to my-
self— ' Ah, where, where, where ? ' and when the
triumphant answer came, 'The fear of the Lord,
that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is under-
standing,' I shrunk ashamed into myself for not
having foreseen it. In later life, when I have
tried to use this answer as a light by which I
could walk, I found it served but to the raising
of another question, ' What is the fear of the
Lord, and what is evil in this particular case ? '
And my easy method with spiritual dilemmas
proved to be but a case of ignotum per ignotius.

'* If Satan himself is at times transformed into
an angel of light, are not angels of light sometimes
transformed into the likeness of Satan ? If the
devil is not so black as he is painted, is God
always so white ? And is there not another place
in which it is said, 'The fear of the Lord is the
beginning of wisdom,' as though it were not the
last word upon the subject ? If a man should
not do evil that good may come, so neither should
he do good that evil may come ; and though it
were good for me to speak out, should I not do
better by refraining ?

Erewhon Revisited

" Such were the lawless and uncertain thoughts
that tortured me very cruelly, so that I did what
I had not done for many a long year — I prayed
for guidance. ' Shew me Thy will, O Lord,' I
cried in great distress, 'and strengthen me to do
it when Thou hast shewn it me.' But there was
no answer. Instinct tore me one way and reason
another. Whereon I settled that I would obey
the reason with which God had endowed me,
unless the instinct He had also given me should
thrash it out of me. I could get no further than
this, that the Lord hath mercy on whom He will
have mercy, and whom He willeth He hardeneth ;
and again I prayed that I might be among those
on whom He would shew His mercy.

"This was the strongest internal conflict that I
ever remember to have felt, and it was at the end
of it that I perceived the first, but as yet very faint,
symptoms of that sickness from which I shall not
recover. Whether this be a token of mercy or no,
my Father which is in heaven knows, but I know
not."

From what my father afterwards told me, I do
not think the above reflections had engrossed him
for more than three or four minutes ; the giddiness
which had for some seconds compelled him to lay
hold of the first thing he could catch at in order to
avoid falling, passed away without leaving a trace
behind it, and his path seemed to become comfort-
ably clear before him. He settled it that the proper

thing to do would be to buy some food, start back

84

The New Order

at once while his permit was still valid, help himself
to the property which he had sold the Professors,
leaving the Erewhonians to wrestle as they best
might with the lot that it had pleased Heaven to send
them.

This, however, was too heroic a course. He was
tired, and wanted a night's rest in a bed ; he was
hungry, and wanted a substantial meal ; he was
curious, moreover, to see the temple dedicated to
himself, and hear Hanky's sermon ; there was also
this further difficulty, he should have to take what
he had sold the Professors without returning them
their .£4, 10s., for he could not do without his
blanket, &c. ; and even if he left a bag of nuggets
made fast to the sucker, he must either place it
where it could be seen so easily that it would very
likely get stolen, or hide it so cleverly that the Pro-
fessors would never find it. He therefore com-
promised by concluding that he would sup and
sleep in Sunch'ston, get through the morrow as he
best could without attracting attention, deepen the
stain on his face and hair, and rely on the change
so made in his appearance to prevent his being re-
cognised at the dedication of the temple. He would
do nothing to disillusion the people — to do this
would only be making bad worse. As soon as the
service was over, he would set out towards the
preserves, and, when it was well dark, make for
the statues. He hoped that on such a great day
the rangers might be many of them in Sunch'ston ;
if there were any about, he must trust the moonless

85

Erewhon Revisited

night and his own quick eyes and ears to get him
through the preserves safely.

The shops were by this time closed, but the
keepers of a few stalls were trying by lamplight
to sell the wares they had not yet got rid of. One
of these was a bookstall, and, running his eye over
some of the volumes, my father saw one entitled —

"The Sayings of the Sunchild during his stay in
Erewhon, to which is added a true account of
his return to the palace of the sun with his
Erewhonian bride. This is the only version autho-
rised by the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the
Musical Banks ; all other versions being imperfect
and inaccurate. — Bridgeford, XVIII. , 150 pp. 8vo.
Price 3s.

The reader will understand that I am giving the
prices as nearly as I can in their English equiva-
lents. Another title was —

"The Sacrament of Divorce: an Occasional Sermon
preached by Dr. Gurgoyle, President of the Musical
Banks for the Province of Sunch'ston. 8vo, 16 pp.
6d.

Other titles ran —

" Counsels of Imperfection." 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.

" Hygiene ; or, How to Diagnose your Doctor. 8vo,
10 pp. 3d.

"The Physics of Vicarious Existence," by Dr. Gur-
goyle, President of the Musical Banks for the Pro-
vince of Sunch'ston. 8vo, 20 pp. 6d.

There were many other books whose titles would

probably have attracted my father as much as those

86

The New Order

that I have given, but he was too tired and hungry
to look at more. Finding that he could buy all the
foregoing for 4s. od., he bought them and stuffed
them into the valise that he had just bought. His
purchases in all had now amounted to a little over
£1, 10s. (silver), leaving him about .£3 (silver), in-
cluding the money for which he had sold the quails,
to carry him on till Sunday afternoon. He intended
to spend say £2 (silver), and keep the rest of the
money in order to give it to the British Museum.

He now began to search for an inn, and walked
about the less fashionable parts of the town till he
found an unpretending tavern, which he thought
would suit him. Here, on importunity, he was
given a servant's room at the top of the house, all
others being engaged by visitors who had come for
the dedication. He ordered a meal, of which he
stood in great need, and having eaten it, he retired
early for the night. But he smoked a pipe surrepti-
tiously up the chimney before he got into bed.

Meanwhile other things were happening, of which,
happily for his repose, he was still ignorant, and
which he did not learn till a few days later. Not
to depart from chronological order I will deal with
them in my next chapter.

87

CHAPTER VIII

YRAM, NOW MAYORESS, GIVES A DINNER-PARTY, IN THE
COURSE OF WHICH SHE IS DISQUIETED BY WHAT SHE
LEARNS FROM PROFESSOR HANKY : SHE SENDS FOR
HER SON GEORGE AND QUESTIONS HIM

The Professors, returning to their hotel early on
the Friday morning, found a note from the
Mayoress urging them to be her guests during
the remainder of their visit, and to meet other
friends at dinner on this same evening. They
accepted, and then went to bed ; for they had
passed the night under the tree in which they
had hidden their purchase, and, as may be
imagined, had slept but little. They rested all
day, and transferred themselves and their belong-
ings to the Mayor's house in time to dress for
dinner.

When they came down into the drawing-room
they found a brilliant company assembled, chiefly
Musical-Bankical like themselves. There was Dr.
Downie, Professor of Logomachy, and perhaps
the most subtle dialectician in Erewhon. He
could say nothing in more words than any man
of his generation. His text-book on the "Art of
Obscuring Issues " had passed through ten or
twelve editions, and was in the hands of all

aspirants for academic distinction. He had earned

88

Yram Guesses the Truth

a high reputation for sobriety of judgement by
resolutely refusing to have definite views on any
subject ; so safe a man was he considered, that
while still quite young he had been appointed to
the lucrative post of Thinker in Ordinary to the
Royal Family. There was Mr. Principal Crank,
with his sister Mrs. Quack ; Professors Gabb and
Bawl, with their wives and two or three erudite
daughters.

Old Mrs. Humdrum (of whom more anon) was
there of course, with her venerable white hair and
rich black satin dress, looking the very ideal of
all that a stately old dowager ought to be. In
society she was commonly known as Ydgrun, so
perfectly did she correspond with the conception
of this strange goddess formed by the Erewhonians.
She was one of those who had visited my father
when he was in prison twenty years earlier. When
he told me that she was now called Ydgrun, he
said, " I am sure that the Erinyes were only Mrs.
Humdrums, and that they were delightful people
when you came to know them. I do not believe
they did the awful things we say they did. I think,
but am not quite sure, that they let Orestes off ; but
even though they had not pardoned him, I doubt
whether they would have done anything more
dreadful to him than issue a mot dordre that he
was not to be asked to any more afternoon teas.
This, however, would be down-right torture to
some people. At any rate," he continued, " be
it the Erinyes, or Mrs. Grundy, or Ydgrun, in all

Erewhon Revisited

times and places it is woman who decides whether
society is to condone an offence or no."

Among the most attractive ladies present was
one for whose Erewhonian name I can find no
English equivalent, and whom I must therefore
call Miss La Frime. She was Lady President of
the principal establishment for the higher educa-
tion of young ladies, and so celebrated was she, that
pupils flocked to her from all parts of the sur-
rounding country. Her primer (written for the
Erewhonian Arts and Science Series) on the Art
of Man-killing, was the most complete thing of
the kind that had yet been done ; but ill-natured
people had been heard to say that she had killed
all her own admirers so effectually that not one
of them had ever lived to marry her. According
to Erewhonian custom the successful marriages of
the pupils are inscribed yearly on the oak panel-
ing of the cottage refectory, and a reprint from
these in pamphlet form accompanies all the pro-
spectuses that are sent out to parents. It was
alleged that no other ladies' seminary in Erewhon
could show such a brilliant record during all the
years of Miss La Frime's presidency. Many other
guests of less note were there, but the lions of the
evening were the two Professors whom we have
already met with, and more particularly Hanky,
who took the Mayoress in to dinner. Panky, of
course, wore his clothes reversed, as did Principal
Crank and Professor Gabb ; the others were dressed

English fashion.

90

Yram Guesses the Truth

Everything hung upon the hostess, for the host
was little more than a still handsome figure-head.
He had been remarkable for his good looks as a
young man, and Strong is the nearest approach I
can get to a translation of his Erewhonian name.
His face inspired confidence at once, but he was
a man of few words, and had little of that grace
which in his wife set every one instantly at his or her
ease. He knew that all would go well so long as he
left everything to her, and kept himself as far as
might be in the background.

Before dinner was announced there was the usual
buzz of conversation, chiefly occupied with saluta-
tions, good wishes for Sunday's weather, and ad-
miration for the extreme beauty of the Mayoress's
three daughters, the two elder of whom were already
out ; while the third, though only thirteen, might
have passed for a year or two older. Their mother
was so much engrossed with receiving her guests
that it was not till they were all at table that she
was able to ask Hanky what he thought of the
statues, which she had heard that he and Professor
Panky had been to see. She was told how much
interested he had been with them, and how unable
he had been to form any theory as to their date or
object. He then added, appealing to Panky, who
was on the Mayoress's left hand, "but we had
rather a strange adventure on our way down, had
we not, Panky ? We got lost, and were benighted
in the forest. Happily we fell in with one of the

rangers who had lit a fire."

91

Erewhon Revisited

" Do I understand, then," said Yram, as I suppose
we may as well call her, " that you were out all last
night ? How tired you must be ! But I hope you
had enough provisions with you ? "

" Indeed we were out all night. We staid by the
ranger's fire till midnight, and then tried Jo find our
way down, but we gave it up soon after we had got
out of the forest, and then waited under a large
chestnut tree till four or five this morning. As for
food, we had not so much as a mouthful from
about three in the afternoon till we got to our inn
early this morning."

" Oh, you poor, poor people ! how tired you
must be."

" No ; we made a good breakfast as soon as we
got in, and then went to bed, where we staid till it
was time for us to come to your house."

Here Panky gave his friend a significant look, as
much as to say that he had said enough.

This set Hanky on at once. " Strange to say, the
ranger was wearing the old Erewhonian dress. It
did me good to see it again after all these years. It
seems your son lets his men wear what few of the
old clothes they may still have, so long as they keep
well away from the town. But fancy how carefully
these poor fellows husband them ; why, it must be
seventeen years since the dress was forbidden ! "

We all of us have skeletons, large or small, in
some cupboard of our lives, but a well regulated
skeleton that will stay in its cupboard quietly does

not much matter. There are skeletons, however,

92

Yram Guesses the Truth

which can never be quite trusted not to open the
cupboard door at some awkward moment, go down
stairs, ring the hall-door bell, with grinning face
announce themselves as the skeleton, and ask
whether the master or mistress is at home. This
kind of skeleton, though no bigger than a rabbit,
will sometimes loom large as that of a dinotherium.
My father was Yram's skeleton. True, he was a
mere skeleton of a skeleton, for the chances were
thousands to one that he and my mother had
perished long years ago ; and even though he rang
at the bell, there was no harm that he either could
or would now do to her or hers ; still, so long as
she did not certainly know that he was dead, or
otherwise precluded from returning, she could not
be sure that he would not one day come back by
the way that he would alone know, and she had
rather he should not do so.

Hence, on hearing from Professor Hanky that
a man had been seen between the statues and
Sunch'ston wearing the old Erewhonian dress, she
was disquieted and perplexed. The excuse he had
evidently made to the Professors aggravated her
uneasiness, for it was an obvious attempt to escape
from an unexpected difficulty. There could be no
truth in it. Her son would as soon think of wear-
ing the old dress himself as of letting his men do so ;
and as for having old clothes still to wear out after
seventeen years, no one but a Bridgeford Professor
would accept this. She saw, therefore, that she
must keep her wits about her, and lead her guests

93

Erewhon Revisited

on to tell her as much as they could be induced
to do.

"My son," she said innocently, "is always con-
siderate to his men, and that is why they are so
devoted to him. I wonder which of them it was ?
In what part of the preserves did you fall in with
him ? "

Hanky described the place, and gave the best
idea he could of my father's appearance.

" Of course he was swarthy like the rest of
us?"

" I saw nothing remarkable about him, except
that his eyes were blue and his eyelashes nearly
white, which, as you know, is rare in Erewhon.
Indeed, I do not remember ever before to have
seen a man with dark hair and complexion but
light eyelashes. Nature is always doing something
unusual."

" I have no doubt," said Yram, " that he was the
man they call Blacksheep, but I never noticed this
peculiarity in him. If he was Blacksheep, I am
afraid you must have found him none too civil ; he
is a rough diamond, and you would hardly be able
to understand his uncouth Sunch'ston dialect."

"On the contrary, he was most kind and
thoughtful — even so far as to take our permit
from us, and thus save us the trouble of giving
it up at your son's office. As for his dialect, his
grammar was often at fault, but we could quite
understand him."

" I am glad to hear he behaved better than

94

Yram Guesses the Truth

I could have expected. Did he say in what part
of the preserves he had been ? "

" He had been catching quails between the place
where we saw him and the statues ; he was to
deliver three dozen to your son this afternoon for
the Mayor's banquet on Sunday."

This was worse and worse. She had urged her
son to provide her with a supply of quails for
Sunday's banquet, but he had begged her not to
insist on having them. There was no close time
for them in Erewhon, but he set his face against
their being seen at table in spring and summer.
During the winter, when any great occasion arose,
he had allowed a few brace to be provided.

" I asked my son to let me have some," said
Yram, who was now on full scent. She laughed
genially as she added, " Can you throw any light
upon the question whether I am likely to get my
three dozen ? I have had no news as yet."

"The man had taken a good many; we saw
them but did not count them. He started about
midnight for the ranger's shelter, where he said
he should sleep till daybreak, so as to make up his
full tale betimes."

Yram had heard her son complain that there
were no shelters on the preserves, and state his
intention of having some built before the winter.
Here too, then, the man's story must be false.
She changed the conversation for the moment, but
quietly told a servant to send high and low in
search of her son, and if he could be found, to

95

Erewhon Revisited

bid him come to her at once. She then returned
to her previous subject.

"And did not this heartless wretch, knowing
how hungry you must both be, let you have a
quail or two as an act of pardonable charity ? "

" My dear Mayoress, how can you ask such a
question ? We knew you would want all you
could get ; moreover, our permit threatened us
with all sorts of horrors if we so much as ate a
single quail. I assure you we never even allowed
a thought of eating one of them to cross our
minds."

"Then," said Yram to herself, "they gorged
upon them." What could she think ? A man who
wore the old dress, and therefore who had almost
certainly been in Erewhon, but had been many
years away from it ; who spoke the language well,
but whose grammar was defective — hence, again,
one who had spent some time in Erewhon ; who
knew nothing of the afforesting law now long
since enacted, for how else would he have dared
to light a fire and be seen with quails in his
possession ; an adroit liar, who on gleaning infor-
mation from the Professors had hazarded an ex-
cuse for immediately retracing his steps ; a man,
too, with blue eyes and light eyelashes. WThat did
it matter about his hair being dark and his com-
plexion swarthy — Higgs was far too clever to
attempt a second visit to Erewhon without dyeing
his hair and staining his face and hands. And he

had got their permit out of the Professors before

96

Yram Guesses the Truth

he left them ; clearly, then, he meant coming back,
and coming back at once before the permit had
expired. How could she doubt ? My father, she
felt sure, must by this time be in Sunch'ston. He
would go back to change his clothes, which would
not be very far down on the other side the pass,
for he would not put on his old Erewhonian dress
till he was on the point of entering Erewhon ; and
he would hide his English dress rather than throw
it away, for he would want it when he went back
again. It would be quite possible, then, for him
to get through the forest before the permit was
void, and he would be sure to go on to Sunch'ston
for the night.

She chatted unconcernedly, now with one guest
now with another, while they in their turn chatted
unconcernedly with one another.

Miss La Frime to Mrs. Humdrum : " You know

how he got his professorship ? No ? I thought

every one knew that. The question the candidates

had to answer was, whether it was wiser during a

long stay at a hotel to tip the servants pretty early,

or to wait till the stay was ended. All the other

candidates took one side or the other, and argued

their case in full. Hanky sent in three lines to

the effect that the proper thing to do would be to

promise at the beginning, and go away without

giving. The King, with whom the appointment

rested, was so much pleased with this answer that

he gave Hanky the professorship without so much

as looking . . ."

97 G

Erewhon Revisited

Professor Gabb to Mrs. Humdrum : " Oh no, I
can assure you there is no truth in it. What
happened was this. There was the usual crowd,
and the people cheered Professor after Professor,
as he stood before them in the great Bridgeford
theatre and satisfied them that a lump of butter
which had been put into his mouth would not melt
in it. When Hanky's turn came he was taken
suddenly unwell, and had to leave the theatre, on
which there was a report in the house that the
butter had melted ; this was at once stopped by
the return of the Professor. Another piece of butter
was put into his mouth, and on being taken out
after the usual time, was found to shew no signs
of having . . ."

Miss Bawl to Mr. Principal Crank : . . . " The
Manager was so tall, you know, and then there
was that little mite of an assistant manager — it was
so funny. For the assistant manager's voice was
ever so much louder than the . . ."

Mrs. Bawl to Professor Gabb : . . . " Live for
art ! If I had to choose whether I would lose either
art or science, I have not the smallest hesitation in
saying that I would lose . . ."

The Mayor and Dr. Downie : . . . "That you
are to be canonised at the close of the year along
with Professors Hanky and Panky ? "

" I believe it is his Majesty's intention that the

Professors and myself are to head the list of the

Sunchild's Saints, but we have all of us got to . . ."

And so on, and so on, buzz, buzz, buzz, over the
98

Yram Guesses the Truth

whole table. Presently Yram turned to Hanky
and said —

"By the way, Professor, you must have found
it very cold up at the statues, did you not ? But
I suppose the snow is all gone by this time ?"

" Yes, it was cold, and though the winter's snow
is melted, there had been a recent fall. Strange to
say, we saw fresh footprints in it, as of some one
who had come up from the other side. But thereon
hangs a tale, about which I believe I should say
nothing."

"Then say nothing, my dear Professor," said
Yram with a frank smile. "Above all," she added
quietly and gravely, "say nothing to the Mayor,
nor to my son, till after Sunday. Even a whisper
of some one coming over from the other side dis-
quiets them, and they have enough on hand for
the moment."

Panky, who had been growing more and more
restive at his friend's outspokenness, but who had
encouraged it more than once by vainly trying to
check it, was relieved at hearing his hostess do for
him what he could not do for himself. As for
Yram, she had got enough out of the Professor
to be now fully dissatisfied, and mentally informed
them that they might leave the witness-box. During
the rest of dinner she let the subject of their adven-
ture severely alone.

It seemed to her as though dinner was never
going to end ; but in the course of time it did so,
and presently the ladies withdrew. As they were

99

Erewhon Revisited

entering the drawing-room a servant told her that
her son had been found more easily than was ex-
pected, and was now in his own room dressing.

" Tell him," she said, " to stay there till I come,
which I will do directly."

She remained for a few minutes with her guests,
and then, excusing herself quietly to Mrs. Hum-
drum, she stepped out and hastened to her son's
room. She told him that Professors Hanky and
Panky were staying in the house, and that during
dinner they had told her something he ought to
know, but which there was no time to tell him until
her guests were gone. " I had rather," she said,
" tell you about it before you see the Professors,
for if you see them the whole thing will be re-
opened, and you are sure to let them see how
much more there is in it than they suspect. I
want everything hushed up for the moment ; do
not, therefore, join us. Have dinner sent to you
in your father's study. I will come to you about
midnight."

11 But, my dear mother," said George, " I have
seen Panky already. I walked down with him a
good long way this afternoon."

Yram had not expected this, but she kept her
countenance. " How did you know," said she,
" that he was Professor Panky ? Did he tell
you so ? "

" Certainly he did. He showed me his permit,
which was made out in favour of Professors Hanky
and Panky, or either of them. He said Hanky

Yram Guesses the Truth

had been unable to come with him, and that he
was himself Professor Panky."

Yram again smiled very sweetly. "Then, my
dear boy," she said, " I am all the more anxious
that you should not see him now. See nobody
but the servants and your brothers, and wait till
I can enlighten you. I must not stay another
moment ; but tell me this much, have you seen
any signs of poachers lately?"

" Yes ; there were three last night."

" In what part of the preserves ? "

Her son described the place.

" You are sure they had been killing quails ? "

"Yes, and eating them — two on one side of a
fire they had lit, and one on the other ; this last
man had done all the plucking."

" Good ! "

She kissed him with more than even her usual
tenderness, and returned to the drawing-room.

During the rest of the evening she was engaged
in earnest conversation with Mrs. Humdrum,
leaving her other guests to her daughters and to
themselves. Mrs. Humdrum had been her closest
friend for many years, and carried more weight
than any one else in Sunch'ston, except, perhaps,
Yram herself. "Tell him everything," she said to
Yram at the close of their conversation ; we all
dote upon him ; trust him frankly, as you trusted
your husband before you let him marry you. No
lies, no reserve, no tears, and all will come right.
As for me, command me," and the good old lady

IOI

Erewhon Revisited

rose to take her leave with as kind a look on her
face as ever irradiated saint or angel. " I go early,"
she added, "for the others will go when they see
me do so, and the sooner you are alone the
better."

By half an hour before midnight her guests had
gone. Hanky and Panky were given to understand
that they must still be tired, and had better go to
bed. So was the Mayor ; so were her sons and
daughters, except of course George, who was wait-
ing for her with some anxiety, for he had seen that
she had something serious to tell him. Then she
went down into the study. Her son embraced her
as she entered, and moved an easy chair for her,
but she would not have it.

" No ; I will have an upright one." Then, sit-
ting composedly down on the one her son placed
for her, she said —

" And now to business. But let me first tell you
that the Mayor was told, twenty years ago, all the
more important part of what you will now hear.
He does not yet know what has happened within
the last few hours, but either you or I will tell him
to-morrow."

CHAPTER IX

INTERVIEW BETWEEN YRAM AND HER SON

" What did you think of Panky ? "

" I could not make him out. If he had not been
a Bridgeford Professor I might have liked him ;
but you know how we all of us distrust those
people."

" Where did you meet him ? "

"About two hours lower down than the statues."

" At what o'clock ? "

" It might be between two and half-past."

" I suppose he did not say that at that hour he
was in bed at his hotel in Sunch'ston. Hardly !
Tell me what passed between you."

" He had his permit open before we were within
speaking distance. I think he feared I should
attack him without making sure whether he was a
foreign devil or no. I have told you he said he
was Professor Panky."

" I suppose he had a dark complexion and black
hair like the rest of us ?"

" Dark complexion and hair purplish rather than

black. I was surprised to see that his eyelashes

were as light as my own, and his eyes were blue

like mine — but you will have noticed this at

dinner."

103

Erewhon Revisited

" No, my dear, I did not, and I think I should
have done so if it had been there to notice."

" Oh, but it was so indeed."

" Perhaps. Was there anything strange about
his way of talking ? "

" A little about his grammar, but these Bridgeford
Professors have often risen from the ranks. His
pronunciation was nearly like yours and mine."

" Was his manner friendly ? "

" Very ; more so than I could understand at
first. I had not, however, been with him long be-
fore I saw tears in his eyes, and when I asked him
whether he was in distress, he said I reminded him
of a son whom he had lost and had found after
many years, only to lose him almost immediately
for ever. Hence his cordiality towards me."

" Then," said Yram half hysterically to herself,
" he knew who you were. Now, how, I wonder,
did he find that out ? " All vestige of doubt as to
who the man might be had now left her.

" Certainly he knew who I was. He spoke about
you more than once, and wished us every kind of
prosperity, baring his head reverently as he spoke."

" Poor fellow ! Did he say anything about
Higgs?"

" A good deal, and I was surprised to find he

thought about it all much as we do. But when I

said that if I could go down into the hell of which

Higgs used to talk to you while he was in prison, I

should expect to find him in its hottest fires, he did

not like it."

104

Yram and Her Son

" Possibly not, my dear. Did you tell him how
the other boys, when you were at school, used
sometimes to say you were son to this man Higgs,
and that the people of Sunch'ston used to say so
also, till the Mayor trounced two or three people
so roundly that they held their tongues for the
future ? "

"Not all that, but I said that silly people had
believed me to be the Sunchild's son, and what a
disgrace I should hold it to be son to such an im-
postor."

" What did he say to this ? "

" He asked whether I should feel the disgrace
less if Higgs were to undo the mischief he had
caused by coming back and shewing himself to the
people for what he was. But he said it would be
no use for him to do so, inasmuch as people would
kill him but would not believe him."

" And you said ?"

" Let him come back, speak out, and chance
what might befall him. In that case, I should
honour him, father or no father."

"And he?"

" He asked if that would be a bargain ; and when
I said it would, he grasped me warmly by the hand
on Higgs's behalf — though what it could matter to
him passes my comprehension."

" But he saw that even though Higgs were to
shew himself and say who he was, it would mean
death to himself and no good to any one else ? "

" Perfectly."

105

Erewhon Revisited

"Then he can have meant nothing by shaking
hands with you. It was an idle jest. And now for
your poachers. You do not know who they were ?
I will tell you. The two who sat on the one side
the fire were Professors Hanky and Panky from
the City of the People who are above Suspicion."

" No," said George vehemently. " Impossible."

" Yes, my dear boy, quite possible, and whether
possible or impossible, assuredly true."

"And the third man?"

"The third man was dressed in the old costume.
He was in possession of several brace of birds.
The Professors vowed they had not eaten any "

" Oh yes, but they had," blurted out George.

" Of course they had, my dear ; and a good thing
too. Let us return to the man in the old costume."

"That is puzzling. Who did he say he was ? "

" He said he was one of your men ; that you had
instructed him to provide you with three dozen
quails for Sunday ; and that you let your men
wear the old costume if they had any of it left,
provided "

This was too much for George ; he started to his
feet. " What, my dearest mother, does all this
mean ? You have been playing with me all
through. What is coming?"

" A very little more, and you shall hear. This
man staid with the Professors till nearly midnight,
and then left them on the plea that he would finish
the night in the Ranger's shelter "

" Ranger's shelter, indeed ! Why "

106

Yram and Her Son

" Hush, my darling boy, be patient with me. He
said he must be up betimes, to run down the rest
of the quails you had ordered him to bring you.
But before leaving the Professors he beguiled them
into giving him up their permit."

"Then," said George, striding about the room
with his face flushed and his eyes flashing, " he was
the man with whom I walked down this afternoon."

" Exactly so."

" And he must have changed his dress ? "

" Exactly so."

" But where and how ? "

" At some place not very far down on the other
side the range, where he had hidden his old clothes."

" And who, in the name of all that we hold most
sacred, do you take him to have been — for I see
you know more than you have yet told me ? "

"My son, he was Higgs the Sunchild, father to
that boy whom I love next to my husband more
dearly than any one in the whole world."

She folded her arms about him for a second,
without kissing him, and left him. " And now,"
she said, the moment she had closed the door —
" and now I may cry."

She did not cry for long, and having removed

all trace of tears as far as might be, she returned

to her son outwardly composed and cheerful.

" Shall I say more now," she said, seeing how

grave he looked, "or shall I leave you, and talk

further with you to-morrow ? "

107

Erewhon Revisited

" Now — now — now ! "

"Good! A little before Higgs came here, the
Mayor, as he now is, poor, handsome, generous
to a fault so far as he had the wherewithal, was
adored by all the women of his own rank in
Sunch'ston. Report said that he had adored many
of them in return, but after having known me for
a very few days, he asked me to marry him, pro-
testing that he was a changed man. I liked him,
as every one else did, but I was not in love with
him, and said so ; he said he would give me as
much time as I chose, if I would not point-blank
refuse him ; and so the matter was left.

"Within a week or so Higgs was brought to the
prison, and he had not been there long before I
found, or thought I found, that I liked him better
than I liked Strong. I was a fool — but there ! As
for Higgs, he liked, but did not love me. If I had
let him alone he would have done the like by me ;
and let each other alone we did, till the day before
he was taken down to the capital. On that day,
whether through his fault or mine I know not — we
neither of us meant it — it was as though Nature,
my dear, was determined that you should not slip
through her fingers — well, on that day we took it
into our heads that we were broken-hearted lovers
— the rest followed. And how, my dearest boy, as
I look upon you, can I feign repentance ?

" My husband, who never saw Higgs, and knew

nothing about him except the too little that I told

him, pressed his suit, and about a month after

108

Yram and Her Son

Higgs had gone, having recovered my passing in-
fatuation for him, I took kindly to the Mayor and
accepted him, without telling him what I ought to
have told him— but the words stuck in my throat.
I had not been engaged to him many days before I
found that there was something which I should not
be able to hide much longer.

" You know, my dear, that my mother had been
long dead, and I never had a sister or any near
kinswoman. At my wits' end who I should consult,
instinct drew me to Mrs. Humdrum, then a woman
of about five-and-forty. She was a grand lady,
while I was about the rank of one of my own
housemaids. I had no claim on her ; I went to
her as a lost dog looks into the faces of people on
a road, and singles out the one who will most
surely help him. I had had a good look at her
once as she was putting on her gloves, and I liked
the way she did it. I marvel at my own boldness.
At any rate, I asked to see her, and told her my
story exactly as I have now told it to you.

" 'You have no mother ? ' she said, when she had
heard all.

"'No.'

"'Then, my dear, I will mother you myself.
Higgs is out of the question, so Strong must marry
you at once. We will tell him everything, and I,
on your behalf, will insist upon it that the engage-
ment is at an end. I hear good reports of him, and
if we are fair towards him he will be generous to-
wards us. Besides, I believe he is so much in love

109

Erewhon Revisited

with you that he would sell his soul to get you.
Send him to me. I can deal with him better than
you can.'"

"And what," said George, "did my father, as I
shall always call him, say to all this ? "

" Truth bred chivalry in him at once. ' I will
marry her/ he said, with hardly a moment's hesita-
tion, ' but it will be better that I should not be put
on any lower footing than Higgs was. I ought not
to be denied anything that has been allowed to him.
If I am trusted, I can trust myself to trust and think
no evil either of Higgs or her. They were pestered
beyond endurance, as I have been ere now. If I
am held at arm's length till I am fast bound, I shall
marry Yram just the same, but I doubt whether she
and I shall ever be quite happy.'

" ' Come to my house this evening,' said Mrs.
Humdrum, 'and you will find Yram there.' He
came, he found me, and within a fortnight we were
man and wife."

" How much does not all this explain," said
George, smiling but very gravely. " And you are
going to ask me to forgive you for robbing me of
such a father."

" He has forgiven me, my dear, for robbing him
of such a son. He never reproached me. From
that day to this he has never given me a harsh word
or even syllable. When you were born he took to
you at once, as, indeed, who could help doing ? for
you were the sweetest child both in looks and
temper that it is possible to conceive. Your having

Yram and Her Son

light hair and eyes made things more difficult ; for
this, and your being born, almost to the day, nine
months after Higgs had left us, made people talk —
but your father kept their tongues within bounds.
They talk still, but they liked what little they saw of
Higgs, they like the Mayor and me, and they like
you the best of all ; so they please themselves by
having the thing both ways. Though, therefore,
you are son to the Mayor, Higgs cast some miracu-
lous spell upon me before he left, whereby my son
should be in some measure his as well as the
Mayor's. It was this miraculous spell that caused
you to be born two months too soon, and we called
you by Higgs's first name as though to show that
we took that view of the matter ourselves.

" Mrs. Humdrum, however, was very positive that
there was no spell at all. She had repeatedly heard
her father say that the Mayor's grandfather was
light-haired and blue-eyed, and that every third
generation in that family a light-haired son was
born. The people believe this too. Nobody dis-
believes Mrs. Humdrum, but they like the miracle
best, so that is how it has been settled.

" I never knew whether Mrs. Humdrum told her
husband, but I think she must ; for a place was
found almost immediately for my husband in Mr.
Humdrum's business. He made himself useful ;
after a few years he was taken into partnership, and
on Mr. Humdrum's death became head of the firm.
Between ourselves, he says laughingly that all his
success in life was due to Higgs and me."

Erewhon Revisited

" I shall give Mrs. Humdrum a double dose of
kissing," said George thoughtfully, " next time I
see her."

" Oh, do, do ; she will so like it. And now, my
darling boy, tell your poor mother whether or no
you can forgive her."

He clasped her in his arms, and kissed her again
and again, but for a time he could find no utter-
ance. Presently he smiled, and said, " Of course I
do, but it is you who should forgive me, for was it
not all my fault ? "

When Yram, too, had become more calm, she
said, " It is late, and we have no time to lose.
Higgs's coming at this time is mere accident ; if he
had had news from Erewhon he would have known
much that he did not know. I cannot guess why
he has come — probably through mere curiosity, but
he will hear or have heard — yes, you and he talked
about it — of the temple ; being here, he will want to
see the dedication. From what you have told me
I feel sure that he will not make a fool of himself
by saying who he is, but in spite of his disguise he
may be recognised. I do not doubt that he is now
in Sunch'ston ; therefore, to-morrow morning
scour the town to find him. Tell him he is dis-
covered, tell him you know from me that he is your
father, and that I wish to see him with all good-will
towards him. He will come. We will then talk to
him, and show him that he must go back at once.
You can escort him to the statues ; after passing
them he will be safe. He will give you no trouble,

Yram and Her Son

but if he does, arrest him on a charge of poaching,
and take him to the gaol, where we must do the
best we can with him — but he will give you none.
We need say nothing to the Professors. No one
but ourselves will know of his having been here."

On this she again embraced her son and left him.
If two photographs could have been taken of her,
one as she opened the door and looked fondly back
on George, and the other as she closed it behind
her, the second portrait would have seemed taken
ten years later than the first.

As for George, he went gravely but not unhappily
to his own room. " So that ready, plausible fellow,"
he muttered to himself, " was my own father. At
any rate, I am not son to a fool — and he liked me."

H3 H

CHAPTER X

MY FATHER, FEARING RECOGNITION AT SUNCH'-
STON, BETAKES HIMSELF TO THE NEIGHBOUR-
ING TOWN OF FAIRMEAD.

I WILL now return to my father. Whether from
fatigue or over-excitement, he slept only by fits
and starts, and when awake he could not rid
himself of the idea that, in spite of his disguise, he
might be recognised, either at his inn or in the
town, by some one of the many who had seen
him when he was in prison. In this case there
was no knowing what might happen, but at best,
discovery would probably prevent his seeing the
temple dedicated to himself, and hearing Professor
Hanky's sermon, which he was particularly anxious
to do.

So strongly did he feel the real or fancied danger
he should incur by spending Saturday in Sunch'-
ston, that he rose as soon as he heard any one
stirring, and having paid his bill, walked quietly
out of the house, without saying where he was
going.

There was a town about ten miles off, not so

important as Sunch'ston, but having some 10,000

inhabitants ; he resolved to find accommodation

there for the day and night, and to walk over to

114

Flight to Fairmead

Sunch'ston in time for the dedication ceremony,
which he had found, on inquiry, would begin at
eleven o'clock.

The country between Sunch'ston and Fairmead,
as the town just referred to was named, was still
mountainous, and being well wooded as well as
well watered, abounded in views of singular beauty;
but I have no time to dwell on the enthusiasm
with which my father described them to me. The
road took him at right angles to the main road
down the valley from Sunch'ston to the capital,
and this was one reason why he had chosen Fair-
mead rather than Clearwater, which was the next
town lower down on the main road. He did not,
indeed, anticipate that any one would want to find
him, but whoever might so want would be more
likely to go straight down the valley than to turn
aside towards Fairmead.

On reaching this place, he found it pretty full of
people, for Saturday was market-day. There was
a considerable open space in the middle of the
town, with an arcade running round three sides of
it, while the fourth was completely taken up by the
venerable Musical Bank of the city, a building
which had weathered the storms of more than five
centuries. On the outside of the wall, abutting on
the market-place, were three wooden sedilia, in
which the Mayor and two coadjutors sate weekly
on market-days to give advice, redress grievances,
and, if necessary (which it very seldom was) to
administer correction.

"5

Erewhon Revisited

My father was much interested in watching the
proceedings in a case which he found on inquiry
to be not infrequent. A man was complaining to
the Mayor that his daughter, a lovely child of eight
years old, had none of the faults common to chil-
dren of her age, and, in fact, seemed absolutely
deficient in immoral sense. She never told lies,
had never stolen so much as a lollipop, never
showed any recalcitrancy about saying her prayers,
and by her incessant obedience had filled her poor
father and mother with the gravest anxiety as
regards her future well-being. He feared it would
be necessary to send her to a deformatory.

" I have generally found," said the Mayor,
gravely but kindly, " that the fault in these distress-
ing cases lies rather with the parent than the chil-
dren. Does the child never break anything by
accident ? "

" Yes," said the father.

" And you have duly punished her for it ? "

" Alas ! sir, I fear I only told her she was a
naughty girl, and must not do it again."

" Then how can you expect your child to learn
those petty arts of deception without which she
must fall an easy prey to any one who wishes to
deceive her ? How can she detect lying in other
people unless she has had some experience of it
in her own practice ? How, again, can she learn
when it will be well for her to lie, and when to
refrain from doing so, unless she has made many
a mistake on a small scale while at an age when

116

Flight to Fairmead

mistakes do not greatly matter ? The Sunchild
(and here he reverently raised his hat), as you
may read in chapter thirty-one of his Sayings, has
left us a touching tale of a little boy, who, having
cut down an apple tree in his father's garden,
lamented his inability to tell a lie. Some com-
mentators, indeed, have held that the evidence
was so strongly against the boy that no lie would
have been of any use to him, and that his percep-
tion of this fact was all that he intended to convey ;
but the best authorities take his simple words, ' I
cannot tell a lie,' in their most natural sense, as
being his expression of regret at the way in which
his education had been neglected. If that case
had come before me, I should have punished the
boy's father, unless he could show that the best
authorities are mistaken (as indeed they too gene-
rally are), and that under more favourable cir-
cumstances the boy would have been able to he,
and would have lied accordingly.

"There is no occasion for you to send your
child to a deformatory. I am always averse to
extreme measures when I can avoid them. More-
over, in a deformatory she would be almost certain
to fall in with characters as intractable as her own.
Take her home and whip her next time she so
much as pulls about the salt. If you will do this
whenever you get a chance, I have every hope
that you will have no occasion to come to me
again."

" Very well, sir," said the father, " I will do my
117

Erewhon Revisited

best, but the child is so instinctively truthful that
I am afraid whipping will be of little use."

There were other cases, none of them serious,
which in the old days would have been treated by
a straightener. My father had already surmised
that the straightener had become extinct as a
class, having been superseded by the Managers
and Cashiers of the Musical Banks, but this be-
came more apparent as he listened to the cases
that next came on. These were dealt with quite
reasonably, except that the magistrate always
ordered an emetic and a strong purge in addition
to the rest of his sentence, as holding that all
diseases of the moral sense spring from impurities
within the body, which must be cleansed before
there could be any hope of spiritual improvement.
If any devils were found in what passed from the
prisoner's body, he was to be brought up again ;
for in this case the rest of the sentence might very
possibly be remitted.

When the Mayor and his coadjutors had done

sitting, my father strolled round the Musical Bank

and entered it by the main entrance, which was

on the top of a flight of steps that went down on

to the principal street of the town. How strange

it is that, no matter how gross a superstition may

have polluted it, a holy place, if hallowed by long

veneration, remains always holy. Look at Delphi.

What a fraud it was, and yet how hallowed it

must ever remain. But letting this pass, Musical

Banks, especially when of great age, always fas-

uS

Flight to Fairmead

cinated my father, and being now tired with his
walk, he sat down on one of the many rush-
bottomed seats, and (for there was no service at
this hour) gave free rein to meditation.

How peaceful it all was with its droning old-
world smell of ancestor, dry rot, and stale incense.
As the clouds came and went, the grey-green,
cobweb-chastened, light ebbed and flowed over
the walls and ceiling; to watch the fitfulness of
its streams was a sufficient occupation. A hen laid
an egg outside and began to cackle— it was an
event of magnitude ; a peasant sharpening his
scythe, a blacksmith hammering at his anvil, the
clack of a wooden shoe upon the pavement, the
boom of a bumble-bee, the dripping of the
fountain, all these things, with such concert as
they kept, invited the dewy-feathered sleep that
visited him, and held him for the best part of an
hour.

My father has said that the Erewhonians never
put up monuments or write epitaphs for their dead,
and this he believed to be still true ; but it was not
so always, and on waking his eye was caught by a
monument of great beauty, which bore a date of
about 1550 of our era. It was to an old lady, who
must have been very loveable if the sweet smiling
face of her recumbent figure was as faithful to the
original as its strongly marked individuality sug-
gested. I need not give the earlier part of her
epitaph, which was conventional enough, but my
father was so struck with the concluding lines, that

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Erewhon Revisited

he copied them into the note-book which he always
carried in his pocket. They ran : —

" I fall asleep in the full and certain hope
That my slumber shall not be broken ;
And that though I be all-forgetting,
Yet shall I not be all-forgotten,
But continue that life in the thoughts and deeds
Of those I loved,
Into which, while the power to strive was yet vouchsafed me,
I fondly strove to enter.

My father deplored his inability to do justice to
the subtle tenderness of the original, but the above
was the nearest he could get to it.

How different this from the opinions concerning
a future state which he had tried to set before the
Erewhonians some twenty years earlier. It all
came back to him, as the storks had done, now
that he was again in an Erewhonian environment,
and he particularly remembered how one youth
had inveighed against our European notions of
heaven and hell with a contemptuous flippancy
that nothing but youth and ignorance could even
palliate.

"Sir," he had said to my father, "your heaven
will not attract me unless I can take my clothes
and my luggage. Yes ; and I must lose my luggage
and find it again. On arriving, I must be told that
it has unfortunately been taken to a wrong circle,
and that there may be some difficulty in recovering
it — or it shall have been sent up to mansion

Flight to Fairmead

number five hundred thousand millions nine hun-
dred thousand forty six thousand eight hundred
and eleven, whereas it should have gone to four
hundred thousand millions, &c, &c. ; and am I sure
that I addressed it rightly ? Then, when I am just
getting cross enough to run some risk of being
turned out, the luggage shall make its appearance,
hat-box, umbrella, rug, golf-sticks, bicycle, and
everything else all quite correct, and in my delight
I shall tip the angel double and realise that I am
enjoying myself.

"Or I must have asked what I could have for
breakfast, and be told I could have boiled eggs,
or eggs and bacon, or filleted plaice. ' Filleted
plaice,' I shall exclaim, ' no ! not that. Have you
any red mullets?' And the angel will say, 'Why
no, sir, the gulf has been so rough that there has
hardly any fish come in this three days, and there
has been such a run on it that we have nothing
left but plaice."

"'Well, well,' I shall say, 'have you any
kidneys ?'

" ' You can have one kidney, sir,' will be the
answer.

'" One kidney, indeed, and you call this heaven !
At any rate you will have sausages ? '

'"Then the angel will say, 'We shall have some
after Sunday, sir, but we are quite out of them at
present.'

" And I shall say, somewhat sulkily, ' Then I
suppose I must have eggs and bacon.'

Erewhon Revisited

" But in the morning there will come up a red
mullet, beautifully cooked, a couple of kidneys and
three sausages browned to a turn, and seasoned
with just so much sage and thyme as will savour
without overwhelming them ; and I shall eat every-
thing. It shall then transpire that the angel knew
about the luggage, and what I was to have for
breakfast, all the time, but wanted to give me the
pleasure of finding things turn out better than I
had expected. Heaven would be a dull place
without such occasional petty false alarms as
these."

I have no business to leave my father's story,
but the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn
should not be so closely muzzled that he cannot
sometimes filch a mouthful for himself ; and when
I had copied out the foregoing somewhat irreve-
rent paragraphs, which I took down (with no im-
portant addition or alteration) from my father's
lips, I could not refrain from making a few reflec-
tions of my own, which I will ask the reader's
forbearance if I lay before him.

Let heaven and hell alone, but think of Hades,
with Tantalus, Sisyphus, Tityus, and all the rest
of them. How futile were the attempts of the old
Greeks and Romans to lay before us any plausible
conception of eternal torture. What were the
Danaids doing but that which each one of us has
to do during his or her whole life ? What are
our bodies if not sieves that we are for ever trying
to fill, but which we must refill continually with-

Flight to Fairmead

out hope of being able to keep them full for long
together ? Do we mind this ? Not so long as
we can get the wherewithal to fill them ; and the
Danaids never seem to have run short of water.
They would probably ere long take to clearing out
any obstruction in their sieves if they found them
getting choked. What could it matter to them
whether the sieves got full or no ? They were
not paid for filling them.

Sisyphus, again ! Can any one believe that he
would go on rolling that stone year after year and
seeing it roll down again unless he liked seeing it ?
We are not told that there was a dragon which
attacked him whenever he tried to shirk. If he
had greatly cared about getting his load over the
last pinch, experience would have shown him some
way of doing so. The probability is that he got
to enjoy the downward rush of his stone, and very
likely amused himself by so timing it as to cause
the greatest scare to the greatest number of the
shades that were below.

What though Tantalus found the water shun
him and the fruits fly from him when he tried to
seize them ? The writer of the " Odyssey " gives us
no hint that he was dying of thirst or hunger.
The pores of his skin would absorb enough water
to prevent the first, and we may be sure that he
got fruit enough, one way or another, to keep him
going.

Tityus, as an effort after the conception of an
eternity of torture, is not successful. What could

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Erewhon Revisited

an eagle matter on the liver of a man whose body
covered nine acres ? Before long he would find
it an agreeable stimulant. If, then, the greatest
minds of antiquity could invent nothing that
should carry better conviction of eternal torture,
is it likely that the conviction can be carried at
all?

Methought I saw Jove sitting on the topmost ridges
of Olympus and confessing failure to Minerva. " I
see, my dear," he said, " that there is no use in
trying to make people very happy or very miser-
able for long together. Pain, if it does not soon
kill, consists not so much in present suffering as
in the still recent memory of a time when there
was less, and in the fear that there will soon be
more ; and so happiness lies less in immediate
pleasure than in lively recollection of a worse time
and lively hope of better."

As for the young gentleman above referred to,
my father met him with the assurance that there
had been several cases in which living people had
been caught up into heaven or carried down into
hell, and been allowed to return to earth and re-
port what they had seen ; while to others visions
had been vouchsafed so clearly that thousands of
authentic pictures had been painted of both states.
All incentive to good conduct, he had then alleged,
was found to be at once removed from those who
doubted the fidelity of these pictures.

This at least was what he had then said, but I

hardly think he would have said it at the time of

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Flight to Fairmead

which I am now writing. As he continued to sit
in the Musical Bank, he took from his valise the
pamphlet on "The Physics of Vicarious Existence,"
by Dr. Gurgoyle, which he had bought on the pre-
ceding evening, doubtless being led to choose this
particular work by the tenor of the old lady's
epitaph.

The second title he found to run, " Being Stric-
tures on Certain Heresies concerning a Future
State that have been Engrafted on the Sunchild's
Teaching."

My father shuddered as he read this title. " How
long," he said to himself, " will it be before they
are at one another's throats ? "

On reading the pamphlet, he found it added little
to what the epitaph had already conveyed ; but it
interested him, as showing that, however cata-
clysmic a change of national opinions may appear
to be, people will find means of bringing the new
into more or less conformity with the old.

Here it is a mere truism to say that many con-
tinue to live a vicarious life long after they have
ceased to be aware of living. This view is as old
as the non omnis mortar of Horace, and we may be
sure some thousands of years older. It is only,
therefore, with much diffidence that I have decided
to give a resume oi opinions many of which those
whom I alone wish to please will have laid to heart
from their youth upwards. In brief, Dr. Gurgoyle's
contention comes to little more than saying that
the quick are more dead, and the dead more quick,

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Erewhon Revisited

than we commonly think. To be alive, according
to him, is only to be unable to understand how
dead one is, and to be dead is only to be invincibly
ignorant concerning our own livingness — for the
dead would be as living as the living if we could
only get them to believe it.

126

CHAPTER XI

PRESIDENT GURGOYLE'S PAMPHLET " ON THE
PHYSICS OF VICARIOUS EXISTENCE"

Belief, like any other moving body, follows the
path of least resistance, and this path had led Dr.
Gurgoyle to the conviction, real or feigned, that
my father was son to the sun, probably by the
moon, and that his ascent into the sky with an
earthly bride was due to the sun's interference
with the laws of nature. Nevertheless he was
looked upon as more or less of a survival, and was
deemed lukewarm, if not heretical, by those who
seemed to be the pillars of the new system.

My father soon found that not even Panky could
manipulate his teaching more freely than the
Doctor had done. My father had taught that
when a man was dead there was an end of him,
until he should rise again in the flesh at the last
day, to enter into eternity either of happiness or
misery. He had, indeed, often talked of the im-
mortality which some achieve even in this world ;
but he had cheapened this, declaring it to be an
unsubstantial mockery, that could give no such
comfort in the hour of death as was unquestionably
given by belief in heaven and hell.

Dr. Gurgoyle, however, had an equal horror, on
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Erewhon Revisited

the one hand, of anything involving resumption
of life by the body when it was once dead, and
on the other, of the view that life ended with the
change which we call death. He did not, indeed,
pretend that he could do much to take away the
sting from death, nor would he do this if he could,
for if men did not fear death unduly, they would
often court it unduly. Death can only be belauded
at the cost of belittling life ; but he held that a
reasonable assurance of fair fame after death is a
truer consolation to the dying, a truer comfort to
surviving friends, and a more real incentive to good
conduct in this life, than any of the consolations
or incentives falsely fathered upon the Sunchild.

He began by setting aside every saying ascribed,
however truly, to my father, if it made against his
views, and by putting his own glosses on all that
he could gloze into an appearance of being in his
favour. I will pass over his attempt to combat the
rapidly spreading belief in a heaven and hell such
as we accept, and will only summarise his conten-
tion that, of our two lives — namely, the one we live
in our own persons, and that other life which we
live in other people both before our reputed death
and after it — the second is as essential a factor of
our complete life as the first is, and sometimes
more so.

Life, he urged, lies not in bodily organs, but in

the power to use them, and in the use that is made

of them — that is to say, in the work they do. As

the essence of a factory is not in the building

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Vicarious Existence

wherein the work is done, nor yet in the imple-
ments used in turning it out, but in the will-power
of the master and in the goods he makes ; so the
true life of a man is in his will and work, not in
his body. "Those," he argued, "who make the
life of a man reside within his body, are like one
who should mistake the carpenter's tool-box for
the carpenter."

He maintained that this had been my father's
teaching, for which my father heartily trusts that
he may be forgiven.

He went on to say that our will-power is not
wholly limited to the working of its own special
system of organs, but under certain conditions can
work and be worked upon by other will-powers
like itself : so that if, for example, A's will-power
has got such hold on B's as to be able, through B,
to work B's mechanism, what seems to have been
B's action will in reality have been more A's than
B's, and this in the same real sense as though the
physical action had been effected through A's own
mechanical system — A, in fact, will have been living
in B. The universally admitted maxim that he who
does this or that by the hand of an agent does it
himself, shews that the foregoing view is only a
roundabout way of stating what common sense
treats as a matter of course.

Hence, though A's individual will-power must be
held to cease when the tools it works with are de-
stroyed or out of gear, yet, so long as any survivors

were so possessed by it while it was still efficient, or,

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Erewhon Revisited

again, become so impressed by its operation on
them through work that he has left, as to act in
obedience to his will-power rather than their own,
A has a certain amount of bond fide life still remain-
ing. His vicarious life is not affected by the dis-
solution of his body ; and in many cases the sum
total of a man's vicarious action and of its outcome
exceeds to an almost infinite extent the sum total
of those actions and works that were effected
through the mechanism of his own physical organs.
In these cases his vicarious life is more truly his life
than any that he lived in his own person.

"True," continued the Doctor, "while living
in his own person, a man knows, or thinks he
knows, what he is doing, whereas we have no
reason to suppose such knowledge on the part of
one whose body is already dust ; but the conscious-
ness of the doer has less to do with the livingness
of the deed than people generally admit. We know
nothing of the power that sets our heart beating,
nor yet of the beating itself so long as it is normal.
We know nothing of our breathing or of our diges-
tion, of the all-important work we achieved as
embryos, nor of our growth from infancy to man-
hood. No one will say that these were not actions
of a living agent, but the more normal, the healthier,
and thus the more truly living, the agent is, the less
he will know or have known of his own action.
The part of our bodily life that enters into our con-
sciousness is very small as compared with that of

which we have no consciousness. What completer

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Vicarious Existence

proof can we have that livingness consists in deed
rather than in consciousness of deed ?

"The foregoing remarks are not intended to
apply so much to vicarious action in virtue, we will
say, of a settlement, or testamentary disposition
that cannot be set aside. Such action is apt to be
too unintelligent, too far from variation and quick
change to rank as true vicarious action ; indeed it
is not rarely found to effect the very opposite of
what the person who made the settlement or will
desired. They are meant to apply to that more
intelligent and versatile action engendered by
affectionate remembrance. Nevertheless, even the
compulsory vicarious action taken in consequence
of a will, and indeed the very name " will " itself,
shews that though we cannot take either flesh or
money with us, we can leave our will-power behind
us in very efficient operation.

"This vicarious life (on which I have insisted,
I fear at unnecessary length, for it is so obvious that
none can have failed to realise it) is lived by every
one of us before death as well as after it, and is
little less important to us than that of which we
are to some extent conscious in our own persons.
A man, we will say, has written a book which
delights or displeases thousands of whom he knows
nothing, and who know nothing of him. The
book, we will suppose, has considerable, or at any
rate some influence on the action of these people.
Let us suppose the writer fast asleep while others
are enjoying his work, and acting in consequence of

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Erewhon Revisited

it, perhaps at long distances from him. Which is
his truest life — the one he is leading in them, or
that equally unconscious life residing in his own
sleeping body ? Can there be a doubt that the
vicarious life is the more efficient ?

" Or when we are waking, how powerfully does
not the life we are living in others pain or delight
us, according as others think ill or well of us ?
How truly do we not recognise it as part of our
own existence, and how great an influence does not
the fear of a present hell in men's bad thoughts,
and the hope of a present heaven in their good
ones, influence our own conduct ? Have we not
here a true heaven and a true hell, as compared
with the efficiency of which these gross material
ones so falsely engrafted on to the Sunchild's
teaching are but as the flint implements of a
prehistoric race ? ' If a man/ said the Sunchild,
'fear not man, whom he hath seen, neither will
he fear God, whom he hath not seen.' "

My father again assures me that he never said
this. Returning to Dr. Gurgoyle, he continued : —

" It may be urged that on a man's death one of

the great factors of his life is so annihilated that

no kind of true life can be any further conceded

to him. For to live is to be influenced, as well as

to influence ; and when a man is dead how can

he be influenced ? He can haunt, but he cannot

any more be haunted. He can come to us, but

we cannot go to him. On ceasing, therefore, to be

impressionable, so great a part of that wherein his

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Vicarious Existence

life consisted is removed, that no true life can be
conceded to him.

" I do not pretend that a man is as fully alive
after his so-called death as before it. He is not.
All I contend for is, that a considerable amount
of efficient life still remains to some of us, and
that a little life remains to all of us, after what we
commonly regard as the complete cessation of life.
In answer, then, to those who have just urged that
the destruction of one of the two great factors of life
destroys life altogether, I reply that the same must
hold good as regards death.

" If to live is to be influenced and to influence,
and if a man cannot be held as living when he
can no longer be influenced, surely to die is to be
no longer able either to influence or be influenced,
and a man cannot be held dead until both these
two factors of death are present. If failure of the
power to be influenced vitiates life, presence of
the power to influence vitiates death. And no
one will deny that a man can influence for many
a long year after he is vulgarly reputed as dead.

" It seems, then, that there is no such thing as
either absolute life without any alloy of death, nor
absolute death without any alloy of life, until, that
is to say, all posthumous power to influence has
faded away. And this, perhaps, is what the Sun-
child meant by saying that in the midst of life we
are in death, and so also that in the midst of death
we are in life.

"And there is this, too. No man can influence
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Erewhon Revisited

fully until he can no more be influenced — that is
to say, till after his so-called death. Till then, his
* he ' is still unsettled. We know not what other in-
fluences may not be brought to bear upon him that
may change the character of the influence he will
exert on ourselves. Therefore, he is not fully living
till he is no longer living. He is an incomplete
work, which cannot have full effect till finished.
And as for his vicarious life — which we have seen
to be very real — this can be, and is, influenced by
just appreciation, undue praise or calumny, and is
subject, it may be, to secular vicissitudes of good
and evil fortune.

" If this is not true, let us have no more talk
about the immortality of great men and women.
The Sunchild was never weary of talking to us
(as we then sometimes thought, a little tediously)
about a great poet of that nation to which it pleased
him to feign that he belonged. How plainly can
we not now see that his words were spoken for
our learning — for the enforcement of that true
view of heaven and hell on which I am feebly
trying to insist ? The poet's name, he said, was
Shakespeare. Whilst he was alive, very few people
understood his greatness ; whereas now, after some
three hundred years, he is deemed the greatest poet
that the world has ever known. ' Can this man,' he
asked, ' be said to have been truly born till many
a long year after he had been reputed as truly
dead ? While he was in the flesh, was he more
than a mere embryo growing towards birth into

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Vicarious Existence

that life of the world to come in which he now
shines so gloriously ? What a small thing was
that flesh and blood life, of which he was alone
conscious, as compared with that fleshless life
which he lives but knows not in the lives of
millions, and which, had it ever been fully re-
vealed even to his imagination, we may be sure
that he could not have reached ?'

"These were the Sunchild's words, as repeated
to me by one of his chosen friends while he was
yet amongst us. Which, then, of this man's two
lives should we deem best worth having, if we
could choose one or other, but not both ? The
felt or the unfelt ? Who would not go cheerfully
to block or stake if he knew that by doing so he
could win such life as this poet lives, though he
also knew that on having won it he could know
no more about it ? Does not this prove that in
our heart of hearts we deem an unfelt life, in the
heaven of men's loving thoughts, to be better worth
having than any we can reasonably hope for and
still feel ?

" And the converse of this is true ; many a man
has unhesitatingly laid down his felt life to escape
unfelt infamy in the hell of men's hatred and con-
tempt. As body is the sacrament, or outward
and visible sign, of mind ; so is posterity the sacra-
ment of those who live after death. Each is
the mechanism through which the other becomes
effective.

" I grant that many live but a short time when
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Erewhon Revisited

the breath is out of them. Few seeds germinate
as compared with those that rot or are eaten, and
most of this world's denizens are little more than
still-born as regards the larger life, while none are
immortal to the end of time. But the end of time
is not worth considering ; not a few live as many
centuries as either they or we need think about,
and surely the world, so far as we can guess its
object, was made rather to be enjoyed than to last.
' Come and go ' pervades all things of which we
have knowledge, and if there was any provision
made, it seems to have been for a short life and
a merry one, with enough chance of extension
beyond the grave to be worth trying for, rather
than for the perpetuity even of the best and
noblest.

" Granted, again, that few live after death as
long or as fully as they had hoped to do, while
many, when quick, can have had none but the
faintest idea of the immortality that awaited them ;
it is nevertheless true that none are so still-born
on death as not to enter into a life of some sort,
however short and humble. A short life or a long
one can no more be bargained for in the unseen
world than in the seen ; as, however, care on the
part of parents can do much for the longer life
and greater well-being of their offspring in this
world, so the conduct of that offspring in this
world does much both to secure for itself longer
tenure of life in the next, and to determine whether

that life shall be one of reward or punishment.

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Vicarious Existence

" ' Reward or punishment,' some reader will per-
haps exclaim ; ' what mockery, when the essence
of reward and punishment lies in their being felt
by those who have earned them.' I can do nothing
with those who either cry for the moon, or deny
that it has two sides, on the ground that we can
see but one. Here comes in faith, of which the
Sunchild said, that though we can do little with
it, we can do nothing without it. Faith does not
consist, as some have falsely urged, in believing
things on insufficient evidence ; this is not faith,
but faithlessness to all that we should hold most
faithfully. Faith consists in holding that the in-
stincts of the best men and women are in them-
selves an evidence which may not be set aside
lightly ; and the best men and women have ever
held that death is better than dishonour, and
desirable if honour is to be won thereby.

" It follows, then, that though our conscious
flesh and blood life is the only one that we can
fully apprehend, yet we do also indeed move, even
here, in an unseen world, wherein, when our
palpable life is ended, we shall continue to live
for a shorter or longer time — reaping roughly,
though not infallibly, much as we have sown.
Of this unseen world the best men and women
will be almost as heedless while in the flesh as
they will be when their life in flesh is over ; for,
as the Sunchild often said, 'The Kingdom of
Heaven cometh not by observation.' It will be
all in all to them, and at the same time nothing,

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Erewhon Revisited

for the better people they are, the less they will
think of anything but this present life.

"What an ineffable contradiction in terms have
we not here. What a reversal, is it not, of all
this world's canons, that we should hold even the
best of all that we can know or feel in this life
to be a poor thing as compared with hopes the
fulfilment of which we can never either feel or
know. Yet we all hold this, however little we
may admit it to ourselves. For the world at heart
despises its own canons."

I cannot quote further from Dr. Gurgoyle's pam-
phlet ; suffice it that he presently dealt with those
who say that it is not right of any man to aim
at thrusting himself in among the living when he
has had his day. " Let him die," say they, " and
let die as his fathers before him." He argued that
as we had a right to pester people till we got our-
selves born, so also we have a right to pester
them for extension of life beyond the grave. Life,
whether before the grave or afterwards, is like love
— all reason is against it, and all healthy instinct
for it. Instinct on such matters is the older and
safer guide ; no one, therefore, should seek to efface
himself as regards the next world more than as
regards this. If he is to be effaced, let others efface
him ; do not let him commit suicide. Freely we
have received ; freely, therefore, let us take as much
more as we can get, and let it be a stand-up fight
between ourselves and posterity to see whether it

can get rid of us or no. If it can, let it ; if it

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Vicarious Existence

cannot, it must put up with us. It can better care
for itself than we can for ourselves when the breath
is out of us.

Not the least important duty, he continued, of
posterity towards itself lies in passing righteous
judgement on the forbears who stand up before it.
They should be allowed the benefit of a doubt, and
peccadilloes should be ignored ; but when no
doubt exists that a man was engrainedly mean and
cowardly, his reputation must remain in the Pur-
gatory of Time for a term varying from, say, a
hundred to two thousand years. After a hundred
years it may generally come down, though it will
still be under a cloud. After two thousand years it
may be mentioned in any society without holding
up of hands in horror. Our sense of moral guilt
varies inversely as the squares of its distance in
time and space from ourselves.

Not so with heroism ; this loses no lustre through
time and distance. Good is gold ; it is rare, but
it will not tarnish. Evil is like dirty water —
plentiful and foul, but it will run itself clear of
taint.

The Doctor having thus expatiated on his own
opinions concerning heaven and hell, concluded
by tilting at those which all right-minded people
hold among ourselves. I shall adhere to my deter-
mination not to reproduce his arguments ; suffice
it that though less flippant than those of the young
student whom I have already referred to, they were
more plausible ; and though I could easily demolish

i39

Erewhon Revisited

them, the reader will probably prefer that I should
not set them up for the mere pleasure of knock-
ing them down. Here, then, I take my leave of
good Dr. Gurgoyle and his pamphlet ; neither can
I interrupt my story further by saying anything
about the other two pamphlets purchased by my
father.

140

CHAPTER XII

GEORGE FAILS TO FIND MY FATHER, WHEREON
YRAM CAUTIONS THE PROFESSORS

On the morning after the interview with her son
described in a foregoing chapter, Yram told her
husband what she had gathered from the Pro-
fessors, and said that she was expecting Higgs
every moment, inasmuch as she was confident that
George would soon find him.

" Do what you like, my dear," said the Mayor.
" I shall keep out of the way, for you will manage
him better without me. You know what I think
of you."

He then went unconcernedly to his breakfast,
at which the Professors found him somewhat taci-
turn. Indeed they set him down as one of the
dullest and most uninteresting people they had
ever met.

When George returned and told his mother that
though he had at last found the inn at which my
father had slept, my father had left and could not
be traced, she was disconcerted, but after a few
minutes she said —

" He will come back here for the dedication,

but there will be such crowds that we may not see

him till he is inside the temple, and it will save

141

Erewhon Revisited

trouble if we can lay hold on him sooner. There-
fore, ride either to Clearwater or Fairmead, and
see if you can find him. Try Fairmead first ; it is
more out of the way. If you cannot hear of him
there, come back, get another horse, and try Clear-
water. If you fail here too, we must give him up,
and look out for him in the temple to-morrow
morning."

" Are you going to say anything to the Pro-
fessors ? "

" Not if you can bring Higgs here before night-
fall. If you cannot do this I must talk it over with
my husband ; I shall have some hours in which
to make up my mind. Now go — the sooner the
better."

It was nearly eleven, and in a few minutes
George was on his way. By noon he was at Fair-
mead, where he tried all the inns in vain for news
of a person answering the description of my father
— for not knowing what name my father might
choose to give, he could trust only to description.
He concluded that since my father could not be
heard of in Fairmead by one o'clock (as it nearly
was by the time he had been round all the inns)
he must have gone somewhere else ; he therefore
rode back to Sunch'ston, made a hasty lunch, got
a fresh horse, and rode to Clearwater, where he
met with no better success. At all the inns both
at Fairmead and Clearwater he left word that if
the person he had described came later in the day,

he was to be told that the Mayoress particularly

142

A Vain Search

begged him to return at once to Sunch'ston, and
come to the Mayor's house.

Now all the time that George was at Fairmead
my father was inside the Musical Bank, which he
had entered before going to any inn. Here he had
been sitting for nearly a couple of hours, resting,
dreaming, and reading Bishop Gurgoyle's pamphlet.
If he had left the Bank five minutes earlier, he
would probably have been seen by George in the
main street of Fairmead — as he found out on reach-
ing the inn which he selected and ordering dinner.

He had hardly got inside the house before the
waiter told him that young Mr. Strong, the Ranger
from Sunch'ston, had been enquiring for him and
had left a message for him, which was duly de-
livered.

My father, though in reality somewhat disquieted,
showed no uneasiness, and said how sorry he was
to have missed seeing Mr. Strong. "But," he added,
" it does not much matter ; I need not go back this
afternoon, for I shall be at Sunch'ston to-morrow
morning and will go straight to the Mayor's."

He had no suspicion that he was discovered, but
he was a good deal puzzled. Presently he inclined
to the opinion that George, still believing him to be
Professor Panky, had wanted to invite him to the
banquet on the following day — for he had no idea
that Hanky and Panky were staying with the Mayor
and Mayoress. Or perhaps the Mayor and his wife
did not like so distinguished a man's having been
unable to find a lodging in Sunch'ston, and wanted

143

Erewhon Revisited

him to stay with them. Ill satisfied as he was with
any theory he could form, he nevertheless reflected
that he could not do better than stay where he was
for the night, inasmuch as no one would be likely
to look for him a second time at Fairmead. He
therefore ordered his room at once.

It was nearly seven before George got back to
Sunch'ston. In the meantime Yram and the Mayor
had considered the question whether anything was
to be said to the Professors or no. They were con-
fident that my father would not commit himself —
why, indeed, should he have dyed his hair and
otherwise disguised himself, if he had not intended
to remain undiscovered ? Oh no ; the probability
was that if nothing was said to the Professors now,
nothing need ever be said, for my father might be
escorted back to the statues by George on the Sun-
day evening and be told that he was not to return.
Moreover, even though something untoward were
to happen after all, the Professors would have no
reason for thinking that their hostess had known of
the Sunchild's being in Sunch'ston.

On the other hand, they were her guests, and it
would not be handsome to keep Hanky, at any
rate, in the dark, when the knowledge that the Sun-
child was listening to every word he said might
make him modify his sermon not a little. It might
or it might not, but that was a matter for him, not
her. The only question for her was whether or no
it would be sharp practice to know what she knew

and say nothing about it. Her husband hated

144

A Vain Search

finesse as much as she did, and they settled it that
though the question was a nice one, the more
proper thing to do would be to tell the Professors
what it might so possibly concern one or both of
them to know.

On George's return without news of my father,
they found he thought just as they did ; so it was
arranged that they should let the Professors dine in
peace, but tell them about the Sunchild's being
again in Erewhon as soon as dinner was over.

"Happily," said George, "they will do no harm.
They will wish Higgs's presence to remain unknown
as much as we do, and they will be glad that he
should be got out of the country immediately."

" Not so, my dear," said Yram. " ' Out of the
country' will not do for those people. Nothing
short of ' out of the world ' will satisfy them."

" That," said George promptly, " must not be."

" Certainly not, my dear, but that is what they
will want. I do not like having to tell them, but I
am afraid we must."

" Never mind," said the Mayor, laughing. " Tell
them, and let us see what happens."

They then dressed for dinner, where Hanky and
Panky were the only guests. When dinner was
over Yram sent away her other children, George
alone remaining. He sat opposite the Professors,
while the Mayor and Yram were at the two ends of
the table.

" I am afraid, dear Professor Hanky," said Yram,
11 that I was not quite open with you last night, but

145 K

Erewhon Revisited

I wanted time to think things over, and I know you
will forgive me when you remember what a number
of guests I had to attend to." She then referred to
what Hanky had told her about the supposed ranger,
and shewed him how obvious it was that this man
was a foreigner, who had been for some time in
Erewhon more than seventeen years ago, but had
had no communication with it since then. Having
pointed sufficiently, as she thought, to the Sunchild,
she said, " You see who I believe this man to have
been. Have I said enough, or shall I say more ?"

" I understand you," said Hanky, " and I agree
with you that the Sunchild will be in the temple to-
morrow. It is a serious business, but I shall not
alter my sermon. He must listen to what I may
choose to say, and I wish I could tell him what a
fool he was for coming here. If he behaves himself,
well and good : your son will arrest him quietly
after service, and by night he will be in the Blue
Pool. Your son is bound to throw him there as a
foreign devil, without the formality of a trial. It
would be a most painful duty to me, but unless I
am satisfied that that man has been thrown into the
Blue Pool, I shall have no option but to report the
matter at headquarters. If, on the other hand,
the poor wretch makes a disturbance, I can set
the crowd on to tear him in pieces."

George was furious, but he remained quite calm,
and left everything to his mother.

" I have nothing to do with the Blue Pool," said

Yram drily. " My son, I doubt not, will know how

146

Yram Warns Hanky

to do his duty ; but if you let the people kill this
man, his body will remain, and an inquest must be
held, for the matter will have been too notorious to
be hushed up. All Higgs's measurements and all
marks on his body were recorded, and these alone
would identify him. My father, too, who is still
master of the gaol, and many another, could swear
to him. Should the body prove, as no doubt it
would, to be that of the Sunchild, what is to become
of Sunchildism ? "

Hanky smiled. " It would not be proved. The
measurements of a man of twenty or thereabouts
would not correspond with this man's. All we
Professors should attend the inquest, and half
Bridgeford is now in Sunch'ston. No matter
though nine -tenths of the marks and measure-
ments corresponded, so long as there is a tenth
that does not do so, we should not be flesh and
blood if we did not ignore the nine points and
insist only on the tenth. After twenty years we
shall find enough to serve our turn. Think of
what all the learning of the country is committed
to ; think of the change in all our ideas and insti-
tutions ; think of the King and of Court influence.
I need not enlarge. We shall not permit the body
to be the Sunchild's. No matter what evidence
you may produce, we shall sneer it down, and say
we must have more before you can expect us to
take you seriously ; if you bring more, we shall pay
no attention ; and the more you bring the more we
shall laugh at you. No doubt those among us who

147

Erewhon Revisited

are by way of being candid will admit that your
arguments ought to be considered, but you must
not expect that it will be any part of their duty to
consider them.

"And even though we admitted that the body
had been proved up to the hilt to be the Sunchild's,
do you think that such a trifle as that could affect
Sunchildism ? Hardly. Sunch'ston is no match
for Bridgeford and the King ; our only difficulty
would lie in settling which was the most plausible
way of the many plausible ways in which the death
could be explained. We should hatch up twenty
theories in less than twenty hours, and the last state
of Sunchildism would be stronger than the first.
For the people want it, and so long as they want
it they will have it. At the same time the supposed
identification of the body, even by some few ignorant
people here, might lead to a local heresy that is as
well avoided, and it will be better that your son
should arrest the man before the dedication, if he
can be found, and throw him into the Blue Pool
without any one but ourselves knowing that he has
been here at all."

I need not dwell on the deep disgust with which
this speech was listened to, but the Mayor, and
Yram, and George said not a word.

" But, Mayoress," said Panky, who had not

opened his lips so far, " are you sure that you are

not too hasty in believing this stranger to be the

Sunchild ? People are continually thinking that

such and such another is the Sunchild come down

148

Yram Warns Hanky

again from the sun's palace and going to and fro
among us. How many such stories, sometimes
very plausibly told, have we not had during the last
twenty years ? They never take root, and die out of
themselves as suddenly as they spring up. That
the man is a poacher can hardly be doubted ; I
thought so the moment I saw him ; but I think I
can also prove to you that he is not a foreigner,
and, therefore, that he is not the Sunchild. He
quoted the Sunchild's prayer with a corruption
that can have only reached him from an Ere-
whonian source "

Here Hanky interrupted him somewhat brusquely.

" The man, Panky," said he, " was the Sunchild ;
and he was not a poacher, for he had no idea that
he was breaking the law ; nevertheless, as you say,
Sunchildism on the brain has been a common form
of mania for several years. Several persons have
even believed themselves to be the Sunchild. We
must not forget this, if it should get about that
Higgs has been here."

Then, turning to Yram, he said sternly, " But
come what may, your son must take him to the
Blue Pool at nightfall."

", Sir," said George, with perfect suavity, " you
have spoken as though you doubted my readiness
to do my duty. Let me assure you very solemnly
that when the time comes for me to act, I shall act
as duty may direct."

" I will answer for him," said Yram, with even

more than her usual quick, frank smile, "that he

149

Erewhon Revisited

will fulfil his instructions to the letter, unless," she
added, " some black and white horses come down
from heaven and snatch poor Higgs out of his
grasp. Such things have happened before now."

" I should advise your son to shoot them if they
do," said Hanky drily and sub-defiantly.

Here the conversation closed ; but it was useless
trying to talk of anything else, so the Professors
asked Yram to excuse them if they retired early, in
view of the fact that they had a fatiguing day before
them. This excuse their hostess readily accepted.

" Do not let us talk any more now," said Yram
as soon as they had left the room. " It will be
quite time enough when the dedication is over.
But I rather think the black and white horses will
come."

" I think so too, my dear," said the Mayor
laughing.

" They shall come," said George gravely ; " but
we have not yet got enough to make sure of bring-
ing them. Higgs will perhaps be able to help me
to-morrow."

" Now what," said Panky as they went upstairs,
" does that woman mean — for she means some-
thing ? Black and white horses indeed ! "

" I do not know what she means to do," said
the other, " but I know that she thinks she can
best us."

" I wish we had not eaten those quails."

" Nonsense, Panky ; no one saw us but Higgs,
150

Yram Warns Hanky

and the evidence of a foreign devil, in such straits
as his, could not stand for a moment. We did not
eat them. No, no ; she has something that she
thinks better than that. Besides, it is absolutely
impossible that she should have heard what hap-
pened. What I do not understand is, why she
should have told us about the Sunchild's being
here at all. Why not have left us to find it out or
to know nothing about it ? I do not understand it."

So true is it, as Euclid long since observed, that
the less cannot comprehend that which is the
greater. True, however, as this is, it is also some-
times true that the greater cannot comprehend the
less. Hanky went musing to his own room and
threw himself into an easy chair to think the posi-
tion over. After a few minutes he went to a table
on which he saw pen, ink, and paper, and wrote a
short letter ; then he rang the bell.

When the servant came he said, " I want to send
this note to the manager of the new temple, and it
is important that he should have it to-night. Be
pleased, therefore, to take it to him and deliver it
into his own hands ; but I had rather you said
nothing about it to the Mayor or Mayoress, nor to
any of your fellow-servants. Slip out unperceived
if you can. When you have delivered the note, ask
for an answer at once, and bring it to me."

So saying, he slipped a sum equal to about five
shillings into the man's hand.

The servant returned in about twenty minutes,
for the temple was quite near, and gave a note to

151

Erewhon Revisited

Hanky, which ran, " Your wishes shall be attended
to without fail."

"Good '."said Hanky to the man. " No one in
the house knows of your having run this errand
for me ? "

" No one, sir."

" Thank you ! I wish you a very good night."

'52

CHAPTER XIII

A VISIT TO THE PROVINCIAL DEFORMATORY
AT FAIRMEAD

Having finished his early dinner, and not fearing
that he should be either recognised at Fairmead
or again enquired after from Sunch'ston, my father
went out for a stroll round the town, to see what
else he could find that should be new and strange
to him. He had not gone far before he saw a
large building with an inscription saying that it was
the Provincial Deformatory for Boys. Underneath
the larger inscription there was a smaller one — one
of those corrupt versions of my father's sayings,
which, on dipping into the Sayings of the Sunchild,
he had found to be so vexatiously common. The
inscription ran : —

" When the righteous man turneth away from the
righteousness that he hath committed, and doeth that
which is a little naughty and wrong, he will generally be
found to have gained in amiability what he has lost in
righteousness." — Sunchild Sayings, chap. xxii. v. 15.

The case of the little girl that he had watched
earlier in the day had filled him with a great desire
to see the working of one of these curious institu-
tions ; he therefore resolved to call on the head-
master (whose name he found to be Turvey), and

153

Erewhon Revisited

enquire about terms, alleging that he had a boy
whose incorrigible rectitude was giving him much
anxiety. The information he had gained in the
forenoon would be enough to save him from
appearing to know nothing of the system. On
having rung the bell, he announced himself to the
servant as a Mr. Senoj, and asked if he could see
the Principal.

Almost immediately he was ushered into the
presence of a beaming, dapper-looking, little old
gentleman, quick of speech and movement, in spite
of some little portliness.

"Ts, ts, ts," he said, when my father had enquired
about terms and asked whether he might see the
system at work. " How unfortunate that you
should have called on a Saturday afternoon. We
always have a half-holiday. But stay — yes — that
will do very nicely ; I will send for them into school
as a means of stimulating their refractory system."

He called his servant and told him to ring the
boys into school. Then, turning to my father he
said, " Stand here, sir, by the window ; you will
see them all come trooping in. H'm, h'm, I am
sorry to see them still come back as soon as they
hear the bell. I suppose I shall ding some recalci-
trancy into them some day, but it is uphill work.
Do you see the head-boy — the third of those that
are coming up the path ? I shall have to get rid
of him. Do you see him ? he is going back to whip
up the laggers — and now he has boxed a boy's ears :
that boy is one of the most hopeful under my care.

154

A Deformatory

I feel sure he has been using improper language,
and my head-boy has checked him instead of en-
couraging him." And so on till the boys were all
in school.

" You see, my dear sir," he said to my father,
" we are in an impossible position. We have to
obey instructions from the Grand Council of
Education at Bridgeford, and they have established
these institutions in consequence of the Sunchild's
having said that we should aim at promoting the
greatest happiness of the greatest number. This,
no doubt, is a sound principle, and the greatest
number are by nature somewhat dull, conceited,
and unscrupulous. They do not like those who
are quick, unassuming, and sincere ; how, then,
consistently with the first principles either of
morality or political economy as revealed to us
by the Sunchild, can we encourage such people
if we can bring sincerity and modesty fairly home
to them ? We cannot do so. And we must correct
the young as far as possible from forming habits
which, unless indulged in with the greatest modera-
tion, are sure to ruin them.

11 I cannot pretend to consider myself very suc-
cessful. I do my best, but I can only aim at
making my school a reflection of the outside world.
In the outside world we have to tolerate much
that is prejudicial to the greatest happiness of the
greatest number, partly because we cannot always
discover in time who may be let alone as being
genuinely insincere, and who are in reality masking

i55

Erewhon Revisited

sincerity under a garb of flippancy, and partly also
because we wish to err on the side of letting the
guilty escape, rather than of punishing the inno-
cent. Thus many people who are perfectly well
known to belong to the straightforward classes are
allowed to remain at large, and may be even seen
hobnobbing with the guardians of public im-
morality. Indeed it is not in the public interest
that straightforwardness should be extirpated root
and branch, for the presence of a small modicum
of sincerity acts as a wholesome irritant to the
academicism of the greatest number, stimulating
it to consciousness of its own happy state, and
giving it something to look down upon. More-
over, we hold it useful to have a certain number
of melancholy examples, whose notorious failure
shall serve as a warning to those who neglect culti-
vating that power of immoral self-control which
shall prevent them from saying, or even thinking,
anything that shall not immediately and palpably
minister to the happiness, and hence meet the ap-
proval, of the greatest number."

By this time the boys were all in school. "There
is not one prig in the whole lot," said the head-
master sadly. " I wish there was, but only those
boys come here who are notoriously too good to
become current coin in the world unless they are
hardened with an alloy of vice. I should have
liked to show you our gambling, book-making,
and speculation class, but the assistant-master who

attends to this branch of our curriculum is gone

156

A Deformatory

to Sunch'ston this afternoon. He has friends who
have asked him to see the dedication of the new
temple, and he will not be back till Monday. I
really do not know what I can do better for you
than examine the boys in Counsels of Imperfection.

So saying, he went into the schoolroom, over
the fireplace of which my father's eye caught an
inscription, " Resist good, and it will fly from you.
Sunchild's Sayings, xvii. 2." Then, taking down a
copy of the work just named from a shelf above
his desk, he ran his eye over a few of its pages.

He called up a class of about twenty boys.

"Now, my boys,'1 he said, "Why is it so neces-
sary to avoid extremes of truthfulness ? "

" It is not necessary, sir," said one youngster,
" and the man who says that it is so is a scoundrel."

"Come here, my boy, and hold out your hand."
When he had done so, Mr. Turvey gave him two
sharp cuts with a cane. "There now, go down
to the bottom of the class and try not to be so
extremely truthful in future." Then, turning to
my father, he said, " I hate caning them, but it is
the only way to teach them. I really do believe
that boy will know better than to say what he
thinks another time."

He repeated his question to the class, and the
head-boy answered, " Because, sir, extremes meet,
and extreme truth will be mixed with extreme
falsehood."

" Quite right, my boy. Truth is like religion ; it

has only two enemies — the too much and the too

i57

Erewhon Revisited

little. Your answer is more satisfactory than some
of your recent conduct had led me to expect."

" But, sir, you punished me only three weeks ago
for telling you a lie."

" Oh yes ; why, so I did ; I had forgotten. But
then you overdid it. Still it was a step in the right
direction."

" And now, my boy," he said to a very frank and
ingenuous youth about half way up the class, " and
how is truth best reached ? "

" Through the falling out of thieves, sir."

" Quite so. Then it will be necessary that the
more earnest, careful, patient, self-sacrificing, en-
quirers after truth should have a good deal of the
thief about them, though they are very honest
people at the same time. Now what does the man "
(who on enquiry my father found to be none other
than Mr. Turvey himself) " say about honesty ? "

" He says, sir, that honesty does not consist in
never stealing, but in knowing how and where it
will be safe to do so."

u Remember," said Mr. Turvey to my father,
" how necessary it is that we should have a plentiful
supply of thieves, if honest men are ever to come
by their own."

He spoke with the utmost gravity, evidently quite

easy in his mind that his scheme was the only one

by which truth could be successfully attained.

" But pray let me have any criticism you may feel

inclined to make."

" I have none," said my father. " Your system
158

A Deformatory

commends itself to common sense ; it is the one
adopted in the law courts, and it lies at the very
foundation of party government. If your academic
bodies can supply the country with a sufficient
number of thieves — which I have no doubt they
can — there seems no limit to the amount of truth
that may be attained. If, however, I may suggest
the only difficulty that occurs to me, it is that
academic thieves shew no great alacrity in falling
out, but incline rather to back each other up
through thick and thin."

"Ah, yes," said Mr. Turvey, "there is that
difficulty ; nevertheless circumstances from time
to time arise to get them by the ears in spite of
themselves. But from whatever point of view you
may look at the question, it is obviously better to
aim at imperfection than perfection ; for if we
aim steadily at imperfection, we shall probably
get it within a reasonable time, whereas to the
end of our days we should never reach perfection.
Moreover, from a worldly point of view, there is
no mistake so great as that of being always right."
He then turned to his class and said —

"And now tell me what did the Sunchild tell us
about God and Mammon ? "

The head-boy answered : " He said that we must
serve both, for no man can serve God well and
truly who does not serve Mammon a little also ;
and no man can serve Mammon effectually unless
he serve God largely at the same time."

" What were his words ? "
'59

Erewhon Revisited

" He said, ' Cursed be they that say, "Thou shalt
not serve God and Mammon," for it is the whole
duty of man to know how to adjust the conflicting
claims of these two deities.' "

Here my father interposed. " I knew the Sun-
child ; and I more than once heard him speak of
God and Mammon. He never varied the form of
the words he used, which were to the effect that a
man must serve either God or Mammon, but that
he could not serve both."

" Ah ! " said Mr. Turvey, " that no doubt was his
exoteric teaching, but Professors Hanky and Panky
have assured me most solemnly that his esoteric
teaching was as I have given it. By the way, these
gentlemen are both, I understand, at Sunch'ston,
and I think it quite likely that I shall have a visit
from them this afternoon. If you do not know
them I should have great pleasure in introducing you
to them ; I was at Bridgeford with both of them."

" I have had the pleasure of meeting them
already," said my father, "and as you are by no
means certain that they will come, I will ask you to
let me thank you for all that you have been good
enough to shew me, and bid you good-afternoon.
I have a rather pressing engagement "

" My dear sir, you must please give me five

minutes more. I shall examine the boys in the

Musical Bank Catechism." He pointed to one of

them and said, " Repeat your duty towards your

neighbour."

" My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy,
160

A Deformatory

" is to be quite sure that he is not likely to borrow
money of me before I let him speak to me at all,
and then to have as little to do with him as "

At this point there was a loud ring at the door
bell. " Hanky and Panky come to see me, no
doubt," said Mr. Turvey. " I do hope it is so. You
must stay and see them."

" My dear sir," said my father, putting his handker-
chief up to his face, " I am taken suddenly unwell and
must positively leave you." He said this in so per-
emptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield. My
father held his handkerchief to his face as he went
through the passage and hall, but when the servant
opened the door he took it down, for there was no
Hanky or Panky — no one,in fact,but a poor, wizened
old man who had come, as he did every other Satur-
day afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.

Nevertheless, he had been scared, and was in a

very wicked-fleeth-when-no-man-pursueth frame of

mind. He went to his inn, and shut himself up in

his room for some time, taking notes of all that had

happened to him in the last three days. But even at

his inn he no longer felt safe. How did he know

but that Hanky and Panky might have driven over

from Sunch'ston to see Mr. Turvey, and might put

up at this very house ? or they might even be

going to spend the night here. He did not venture

out of his room till after seven by which time he

had made rough notes of as much of the foregoing

chapters as had come to his knowledge so far.

Much of what I have told as nearly as I could in

161 L

Erewhon Revisited

the order in which it happened, he did not learn till
later. After giving the merest outline of his inter-
view with Mr. Turvey, he wrote a note as follows : —

" I suppose I must have held forth about the
greatest happiness of the greatest number, but
I had quite forgotten it, though I remember re-
peatedly quoting my favourite proverb, ' Every
man for himself, and the devil take the hindmost.'
To this they have paid no attention."

By seven his panic about Hanky and Panky
ended, for if they had not come by this time, they
were not likely to do so. Not knowing that they
were staying at the Mayor's, he had rather settled
it that they would now stroll up to the place where
they had left their hoard and bring it down as soon
as night had fallen. And it is quite possible that
they might have found some excuse for doing this,
when dinner was over, if their hostess had not
undesignedly hindered them by telling them about
the Sunchild. When the conversation recorded in
the preceding chapter was over, it was too late for
them to make any plausible excuse for leaving the
house ; we may be sure, therefore, that much more
had been said than Yram and George were able to
remember and report to my father.

After another stroll about Fairmead, during which

he saw nothing but what on a larger scale he had

already seen at Sunch'ston, he returned to his inn

at about half-past eight, and ordered supper in a

public room that corresponded with the coffee-room

of an English hotel.

162

CHAPTER XIV

my father makes the acquaintance of mr.
balmy, and walks with him next day to
sunch'ston.

Up to this point, though he had seen enough to
shew him the main drift of the great changes that
had taken place iri Erewhonian opinions, my father
had not been able to glean much about the history
of the transformation. He could see that it had all
grown out of the supposed miracle of his balloon
ascent, and he could understand that the ignorant
masses had been so astounded by an event so con-
trary to all their experience, that their faith in
experience was utterly routed and demoralised. If
a man and a woman might rise from the earth and
disappear into the sky, what else might not happen ?
If they had been wrong in thinking such a thing
impossible, in how much else might they not be
mistaken also ? The ground was shaken under
their very feet.

It wras not as though the thing had been done
in a corner. Hundreds of people had seen the
ascent ; and even if only a small number had
been present, the disappearance of the balloon, of
my mother, and of my father himself, would have
confirmed their story. My father, then, could

163

Erewhon Revisited

understand that a single incontrovertible miracle
of the first magnitude should uproot the hedges of
caution in the minds of the common people, but he
could not understand how such men as Hanky and
Panky, who evidently did not believe that there had
been any miracle at all, had been led to throw
themselves so energetically into a movement so
subversive of all their traditions, when, as it seemed
to him, if they had held out they might have pricked
the balloon bubble easily enough, and maintained
everything in statu quo.

How, again, had they converted the King — if they
had converted him ? The Queen had had full
knowledge of all the preparations for the ascent.
The King had had everything explained to him.
The workmen and workwomen who had made the
balloon and the gas could testify that none but
natural means had been made use of — means which,
if again employed any number of times, would
effect a like result. How could it be that when the
means of resistance were so ample and so easy, the
movement should nevertheless have been irresis-
tible ? For had it not been irresistible, was it to be
believed that astute men like Hanky and Panky
would have let themselves be drawn into it ?

What then had been its inner history ? My father

had so fully determined to make his way back on

the following evening, that he saw no chance of

getting to know the facts — unless, indeed, he should

be able to learn something from Hanky's sermon ;

he was therefore not sorry to find an elderly gentle-

164

Mr. Balmy

man of grave but kindly aspect seated opposite to
him when he sat down to supper.

The expression on this man's face was much like
that of the early Christians as shewn in the S.
Giovanni Laterano bas-reliefs at Rome, and again,
though less aggressively self-confident, like that on
the faces of those who have joined the Salvation
Army. If he had been in England, my father would
have set him down as a Swedenborgian ; this being
impossible, he could only note that the stranger
bowed his head, evidently saying a short grace
before he began to eat, as my father had always
done when he was in Erewhon before. I will not
say that my father had never omitted to say grace
during the whole of the last twenty years, but he
said it now, and unfortunately forgetting himself, he
said it in the English language, not loud, but never-
theless audibly.

My father was alarmed at what he had done, but
there was no need, for the stranger immediately
said, " I hear, sir, that you have the gift of tongues.
The Sunchild often mentioned it to us, as having
been vouchsafed long since to certain of the people,
to whom, for our learning, he saw fit to feign that
he belonged. He thus foreshadowed prophetically
its manifestation also among ourselves. All which,
however, you must know as well as I do. Can you
interpret ?"

My father was much shocked, but he remem-
bered having frequently spoken of the power of

speaking in unknown tongues which was possessed

165

Erewhon Revisited

by many of the early Christians, and he also re-
membered that in times of high religious enthusi-
asm this power had repeatedly been imparted, or
supposed to be imparted, to devout believers in the
middle ages. It grated upon him to deceive one
who was so obviously sincere, but to avoid imme-
diate discomfiture he fell in with what the stranger
had said.

" Alas ! sir," said he, " that rarer and more pre-
cious gift has been withheld from me ; nor can I
speak in an unknown tongue, unless as it is borne
in upon me at the moment. I could not even re-
peat the words that have just fallen from me."

"That," replied the stranger, "is almost invari-
ably the case. These illuminations of the spirit are
beyond human control. You spoke in so low a
tone that I cannot interpret what you have just
said, but should you receive a second inspiration
later, I shall doubtless be able to interpret it for you.
I have been singularly gifted in this respect — more
so, perhaps, than any other interpreter in Erewhon."

My father mentally vowed that no second inspira-
tion should be vouchsafed to him, but presently
remembering how anxious he was for information
on the points touched upon at the beginning of this
chapter, and seeing that fortune had sent him the
kind of man who would be able to enlighten him,
he changed his mind ; nothing, he reflected, would
be more likely to make the stranger talk freely with
him, than the affording him an opportunity for

showing off his skill as an interpreter.

1 66

Mr. Balmy

Something, therefore, he would say, but what ?
No one could talk more freely when the train of his
thoughts, or the conversation of others, gave him
his cue, but when told to say an unattached " some-
thing," he could not even think of " How do you do
this morning ? it is a very fine day ; " and the more
he cudgelled his brains for " something," the more
they gave no response. He could not even con-
verse further with the stranger beyond plain " yes "
and " no " ; so he went on with his supper, and in
thinking of what he was eating and drinking for the
moment forgot to ransack his brain. No sooner
had he left off ransacking it, than it suggested some-
thing— not, indeed, a very brilliant something, but
still something. On having grasped it, he laid down
his knife and fork, and with the air of one distraught
he said —

" My name is Norval, on the Grampian Hills
My father feeds his flock — a frugal swain."

" I heard you," exclaimed the stranger, " and I
can interpret every word of what you have said, but
it would not become me to do so, for you have con-
veyed to me a message more comforting than I can
bring myself to repeat even to him who has con-
veyed it."

Having said this he bowed his head, and re-
mained for some time wrapped in meditation.
My father kept a respectful silence, but after a
little time he ventured to say in a low tone, how

glad he was to have been the medium through

167

Erewhon Revisited

whom a comforting assurance had been conveyed.
Presently, on finding himself encouraged to renew
the conversation, he threw out a deferential feeler
as to the causes that might have induced Mr.
Balmy to come to Fairmead. " Perhaps," he
said, "you, like myself, have come to these parts
in order to see the dedication of the new temple ;
I could not get a lodging in Sunch'ston, so I
walked down here this morning."

This, it seemed, had been Mr. Balmy's own case,
except that he had not yet been to Sunch'ston.
Having heard that it was full to overflowing, he
had determined to pass the night at Fairmead,
and walk over in the morning — starting soon after
seven, so as to arrive in good time for the dedica-
tion ceremony. When my father heard this, he
proposed that they should walk together, to which
Mr. Balmy gladly consented ; it was therefore
arranged that they should go to bed early, break-
fast soon after six, and then walk to Sunch'ston.
My father then went to his own room, where
he again smoked a surreptitious pipe up the
chimney.

Next morning the two men breakfasted to-
gether, and set out as the clock was striking
seven. The day was lovely beyond the power
of words, and still fresh — for Fairmead was some
2500 feet above the sea, and the sun did not get
above the mountains that overhung it on the east
side, till after eight o'clock. Many persons were

also starting for Sunch'ston, and there was a pro-

168

Mr. Balmy

cession got up by the Musical Bank Managers
of the town, who walked in it, robed in rich
dresses of scarlet and white embroidered with
much gold thread. There was a banner display-
ing an open chariot in which the Sunchild and
his bride were seated, beaming with smiles, and
in attitudes suggesting that they were bowing to
people who were below them. The chariot was, of
course, drawn by the four black and white horses
of which the reader has already heard, and the
balloon had been ignored. Readers of my father's
book will perhaps remember that my mother was
not seen at all — she was smuggled into the car
of the balloon along with sundry rugs, under which
she lay concealed till the balloon had left the
earth. All this went for nothing. It has been
said that though God cannot alter the past,
historians can ; it is perhaps because they can be
useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates
their existence. Painters, my father now realised,
can do all that historians can, with even greater
effect.

Women headed the procession — the younger
ones dressed in white, with veils and chaplets of
roses, blue cornflower, and pheasant's eye Nar-
cissus, while the older women were more soberly
attired. The Bank Managers and the banner
headed the men, who were mostly peasants, but
among them were a few who seemed to be of
higher rank, and these, for the most part, though

by no means all of them, wore their clothes re-

169

Erewhon Revisited

versed — as I have forgotten to say was done also
by Mr. Balmy. Both men and women joined
in singing a litany the words of which my father
could not catch ; the tune was one he had been
used to play on his apology for a flute when he
was in prison, being, in fact, none other than
" Home, Sweet Home." There was no harmony ;
they never got beyond the first four bars, but
these they must have repeated, my father thought,
at least a hundred times between Fairmead and
Sunch'ston. "Well," said he to himself, "how-
ever little else I may have taught them, I at any
rate gave them the diatonic scale."

He now set himself to exploit his fellow-traveller,
for they soon got past the procession.

" The greatest miracle," said he, " in connection
with this whole matter, has been — so at least it
seems to me — not the ascent of the Sunchild with
his bride, but the readiness with which the people
generally acknowledged its miraculous character.
I was one of those that witnessed the ascent, but I
saw no signs that the crowd appreciated its signifi-
cance. They were astounded, but they did not fall
down and worship."

"Ah," said the other, "but you forget the long
drought and the rain that the Sunchild immediately
prevailed on the air-god to send us. He had an-
nounced himself as about to procure it for us ; it
was on this ground that the King assented to the
preparation of those material means that were neces-
sary before the horses of the sun could attach them-

170

Mr. Balmy

selves to the chariot into which the balloon was
immediately transformed. Those horses might not
be defiled by contact with this gross earth. I too
witnessed the ascent ; at the moment, I grant yon,
I saw neither chariot nor horses, and almost all
those present shared my own temporary blindness ;
the whole action from the moment when the balloon
left the earth, moved so rapidly, that we were flus-
tered, and hardly knew what it was that we were
really seeing. It was not till two or three years
later that I found the scene presenting itself to my
soul's imaginary sight in the full splendour which
was no doubt witnessed, but not apprehended, by
my bodily vision."

" There," said my father, " you confirm an opinion
that I have long held. — Nothing is so misleading as
the testimony of eye-witnesses."

" A spiritual enlightenment from within," returned
Mr. Balmy, " is more to be relied on than any
merely physical affluence from external objects.
Now, when I shut my eyes, I see the balloon
ascend a little way, but almost immediately the
heavens open, the horses descend, the balloon is
transformed, and the glorious pageant careers on-
ward till it vanishes into the heaven of heavens.
Hundreds with whom I have conversed assure me
that their experience has been the same as mine.
Has yours been different ? "

" Oh no, not at all ; but I always see some storks

circling round the balloon before I see any horses."

" How strange ! I have heard others also say
171

Erewhon Revisited

that they saw the storks you mention ; but let me
do my utmost I cannot force them into my mental
image of the scene. This shows, as you were saying
just now, how incomplete the testimony of an eye-
witness often is. It is quite possible that the storks
were there, but the horses and the chariot have im-
pressed themselves more vividly on my mind than
anything else has."

" Quite so ; and I am not without hope that even
at this late hour some further details may yet be
revealed to us."

" It is possible, but we should be as cautious in
accepting any fresh details as in rejecting them.
Should some heresy obtain wide acceptance, visions
will perhaps be granted to us that may be useful in
refuting it, but otherwise I expect nothing more."

" Neither do I, but I have heard people say that
inasmuch as the Sunchild said he was going to
interview the air-god in order to send us rain, he
was more probably son to the air-god than to the
sun. Now here is a heresy which "

" But, my dear sir," said Mr. Balmy, interrupting
him with great warmth, " he spoke of his father in
heaven as endowed with attributes far exceeding
any that can be conceivably ascribed to the air-
god. The power of the air-god does not extend
beyond our own atmosphere."

" Pray believe me," said my father, who saw by

the ecstatic gleam in his companion's eye that there

was nothing to be done but to agree with him,

"that I accept "

172

Mr. Balmy

" Hear me to the end," replied Mr. Balmy. " Who
ever heard the Sunchild claim relationship with the
air-god ? He could command the air-god, and
evidently did so, halting no doubt for this bene-
ficent purpose on his journey towards his ultimate
destination. Can we suppose that the air-god,
who had evidently intended withholding the rain
from us for an indefinite period, should have so
immediately relinquished his designs against us at
the intervention of any less exalted personage than
the sun's own offspring ? Impossible ! "

" I quite agree with you," exclaimed my father,
" it is out of the "

"Let me finish what I have to say. When the
rain came so copiously for days, even those who
had not seen the miraculous ascent found its con-
sequences come so directly home to them, that
they had no difficulty in accepting the report of
others. There was not a farmer or cottager in the
land but heaved a sigh of relief at rescue from
impending ruin, and they all knew it was the
Sunchild who had promised the King that he
would make the air-god send it. So abundantly,
you will remember, did it come, that we had to
pray to him to stop it, which in his own good
time he was pleased to do."

" I remember," said my father, who was at last
able to edge in a word, " that it nearly flooded me
out of house and home. And yet, in spite of all
this, I hear that there are many at Bridgeford who
are still hardened unbelievers."

173

Erewhon Revisited

" Alas ! you speak too truly. Bridgeford and the
Musical Banks for the first three years fought tooth
and nail to blind those whom it was their first duty
to enlighten. I was a Professor of the hypothetical
language, and you may perhaps remember how I
was driven from my chair on account of the fear-
lessness with which I expounded the deeper mys-
teries of Sunchildism."

"Yes, I remember well how cruelly " but my

father was not allowed to get beyond " cruelly."

" It was I who explained why the Sunchild had
represented himself as belonging to a people in
many respects analogous to our own, when no
such people can have existed. It was I who de-
tected that the supposed nation spoken of by the
Sunchild was an invention designed in order to
give us instruction by the light of which we might
more easily remodel our institutions. I have some-
times thought that my gift of interpretation was
vouchsafed to me in recognition of the humble
services that I was hereby allowed to render. By
the way, you have received no illumination this
morning, have you ? "

" I never do, sir, when I am in the company of
one whose conversation I find supremely inter-
esting. But you were telling me about Bridge-
ford : I live hundreds of miles from Bridgeford,
and have never understood the suddenness, and
completeness, with which men like Professors
Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie changed front.

Do they believe as you and I do, or did they

i74

Mr. Balmy

merely go with the times ? I spent a couple of
hours with Hanky and Panky only two evenings ago,
and was not so much impressed as I could have
wished with the depth of their religious fervour."

"They are sincere now— more especially Hanky
—but I cannot think I am judging them harshly,
if I say that they were not so at first. Even now,
I fear, that they are more carnally than spiritually
minded. See how they have fought for the ag-
grandisement of their own order. It is mainly
their doing that the Musical Banks have usurped
the spiritual authority formerly exercised by the
straighteners."

" But the straighteners," said my father, " could
not co-exist with Sunchildism, and it is hard to see
how the claims of the Banks can be reasonably
gainsaid."

"Perhaps; and after all the Banks are our
main bulwark against the evils that I fear will
follow from the repeal of the laws against machi-
nery. This has already led to the development
of a materialism which minimizes the miraculous
element in the Sunchild's ascent, as our own people
minimize the material means that were the neces-
sary prologue to the miraculous."

Thus did they converse ; but I will not pursue
their conversation further. It will be enough to
say that in further floods of talk Mr. Balmy con-
firmed what George had said about the Banks
having lost their hold upon the masses. That hold
was weak even in the time of my father's first visit ;

i75

Erewhon Revisited

but when the people saw the hostility of the Banks
to a movement which far the greater number of
them accepted, it seemed as though both Bridge-
ford and the Banks were doomed, for Bridgeford
was heart and soul with the Banks. Hanky, it
appeared, though under thirty, and not yet a Pro-
fessor, grasped the situation, and saw that Bridge-
ford must either move with the times, or go. He
consulted some of the most sagacious Heads of
Houses and Professors, with the result that a
committee of enquiry was appointed, which in due
course reported that the evidence for the Sunchild's
having been the only child of the sun was conclu-
sive. It was about this time — that is to say some
three years after his ascent — that " Higgsism," as it
had been hitherto called, became " Sunchildism,"
and " Higgs " the " Sunchild."

My father also learned the King's fury at his
escape (for he would call it nothing else) with my
mother. This was so great that though he had
hitherto been, and had ever since proved himself
to be, a humane ruler, he ordered the instant exe-
cution of all who had been concerned in making
either the gas or the balloon ; and his cruel orders
were carried out within a couple of hours. At the
same time he ordered the destruction by fire of the
Queen's workshops, and of all remnants of any
materials used in making the balloon. It is said
the Queen was so much grieved and outraged
(for it was her doing that the material ground-
work, so to speak, had been provided for the miracle)

176

Mr. Balmy

that she wept night and day without ceasing three
whole months, and never again allowed her hus-
band to embrace her, till he had also embraced
Sunchildism.

When the rain came, public indignation at the
King's action was raised almost to revolution pitch,
and the King was frightened at once by the arrival
of the promised downfall and the displeasure of his
subjects. But he still held out, and it was only
after concessions on the part of the Bridgeford
committee, that he at last consented to the absorp-
tion of Sunchildism into the Musical Bank system,
and to its establishment as the religion of the
country. The far-reaching changes in Erewhonian
institutions with which the reader is already ac-
quainted followed as a matter of course.

" I know the difficulty," said my father presently,
" with which the King was persuaded to allow the
way in which the Sunchild's dress should be worn
to be a matter of opinion, not dogma. I see we have
adopted different fashions. Have you any decided
opinions upon the subject ? "

" I have ; but I will ask you not to press me for
them. Let this matter remain as the King has
left it."

My father thought that he might now venture on
a shot. So he said, " I have always understood,
too, that the King forced the repeal of the laws
against machinery on the Bridgeford committee, as
another condition of his assent ?"

"Certainly. He insisted on this, partly to gratify
177 M

Erewhon Revisited

the Queen, who had not yet forgiven him, and who
had set her heart on having a watch, and partly
because he expected that a development of the
country's resources, in consequence of a freer use
of machinery, would bring more money into his
exchequer. Bridgeford fought hard and wisely
here, but they had gained so much by the Musical
Bank Managers being recognised as the authorised
exponents of Sunchildism, that they thought it
wise to yield — apparently with a good grace — and
thus gild the pill which his Majesty was about to
swallow. But even then they feared the conse-
quences that are already beginning to appear, and
which, if I mistake not, will assume far more serious
proportions in the future."

" See," said my father suddenly, " we are coming
to another procession, and they have got some
banners ; let us walk a little quicker and over-
take it."

"Horrible!" replied Mr. Balmy fiercely. "You
must be short-sighted, or you could never have
called my attention to it. Let us get it behind us
as fast as possible, and not so much as look at it."

" Oh yes, yes," said my father, " it is indeed hor-
rible, I had not seen what it was."

He had not the faintest idea what the matter

was, but he let Mr. Balmy walk a little ahead of

him, so that he could see the banners, the most

important of which he found to display a balloon

pure and simple, with one figure in the car. True,

at the top of the banner there was a smudge which

178

Mr. Balmy

might be taken for a little chariot, and some very
little horses, but the balloon was the only thing in-
sisted on. As for the procession, it consisted entirely
of men, whom a smaller banner announced to be
workmen from the Fairmead iron and steel works.
There was a third banner, which said, " Science as
well as Sunchildism."

179

CHAPTER XV

THE TEMPLE IS DEDICATED TO MY FATHER, AND
CERTAIN EXTRACTS ARE READ FROM HIS SUP-
POSED SAYINGS.

" It is enough to break one's heart," said Mr. Balmy
when he had outstripped the procession, and my
father was again beside him. " ' As well as,' indeed !
We know what that means. Wherever there is a
factory there is a hot -bed of unbelief. 'As well
as' ! Why it is a defiance."

"What, I wonder," said my father innocently,
" must the Sunchild's feelings be, as he looks down
on this procession. For there can be little doubt
that he is doing so."

"There can be no doubt at all," replied Mr.
Balmy, "that he is taking note of it, and of all else
that is happening this day in Erewhon. Heaven
grant that he be not so angered as to chastise the
innocent as well as the guilty."

" I doubt," said my father, " his being so angry
even with this procession, as you think he is."

Here, fearing an outburst of indignation, he
found an excuse for rapidly changing the conver-
sation. Moreover he was angry with himself for
playing upon this poor good creature. He had

not done so of malice prepense ; he had begun to

1 80

The Dedication

deceive him, because he believed himself to be in
danger if he spoke the truth ; and though he knew
the part to be an unworthy one, he could not
escape from continuing to play it, if he was to
discover things that he was not likely to discover
otherwise.

Often, however, he had checked himself. It had
been on the tip of his tongue to be illuminated with
the words,

Sukoh and Sukop were two pretty men,
They lay in bed till the clock struck ten,

and to follow it up with,

Now with the drops of this most Yknarc time
My love looks fresh,

in order to see how Mr. Balmy would interpret the

assertion here made about the Professors, and what

statement he would connect with his own Ere-

whonian name ; but he had restrained himself.

The more he saw, and the more he heard, the

the more shocked he was at the mischief he had

done. See how he had unsettled the little mind

this poor, dear, good gentleman had ever had, till

he was now a mere slave to preconception. And

how many more had he not in like manner brought

to the verge of idiocy ? How many again had he

not made more corrupt than they were before, even

though he had not deceived them — as for example,

Hanky and Panky. And the young ? how could

such a lie as that a chariot and four horses came

181

Erewhon Revisited

down out of the clouds enter seriously into the life
of any one, without distorting his mental vision, if
not ruining it ?

And yet, the more he reflected, the more he also
saw that he could do no good by saying who he
was. Matters had gone so far that though he spoke
with the tongues of men and angels he would not
be listened to ; and even if he were, it might easily
prove that he had added harm to that which he had
done already. No. As soon as he had heard
Hanky's sermon, he would begin to work his way
back, and if the Professors had not yet removed
their purchase, he would recover it ; but he would
pin a bag containing about five pounds worth of
nuggets on to the tree in which they had hidden
it, and, if possible, he would find some way of send-
ing the rest to George.

He let Mr. Balmy continue talking, glad that this

gentleman required little more than monosyllabic

answers, and still more glad, in spite of some

agitation, to see that they were now nearing

Sunch'ston, towards which a great concourse of

people was hurrying from Clearwater, and more

distant towns on the main road. Many whole

families were coming, — the fathers and mothers

carrying the smaller children, and also their own

shoes and stockings, which they would put on

when nearing the town. Most of the pilgrims

brought provisions with them. All wore European

costumes, but only a few of them wore it reversed,

and these were almost invariably of higher social

182

The Dedication

status than the great body of the people, who were
mainly peasants.

When they reached the town, my father was
relieved at finding that Mr. Balmy had friends on
whom he wished to call before going to the temple.
He asked my father to come with him, but my father
said that he too had friends, and would leave him
for the present, while hoping to meet him again
later in the day. The two, therefore, shook hands
with great effusion, and went their several ways.
My father's way took him first into a confectioner's
shop, where he bought a couple of Sunchild buns,
which he put into his pocket, and refreshed himself
with a bottle of Sunchild cordial and water. All
shops except those dealing in refreshments were
closed, and the town was gaily decorated with flags
and flowers, often festooned into words or em-
blems proper for the occasion.

My father, it being now a quarter to eleven,
made his way towards the temple, and his heart
was clouded with care as he walked along. Not
only was his heart clouded, but his brain also was
oppressed, and he reeled so much on leaving the
confectioner's shop, that he had to catch hold of
some railings till the faintness and giddiness left
him. He knew the feeling to be the same as what
he had felt on the Friday evening, but he had no
idea of the cause, and as soon as the giddiness left
him he thought there was nothing the matter with
him.

Turning down a side street that led into the main
183

Erewhon Revisited

square of the town, he found himself opposite the
west end of the temple, with its two lofty towers
that flanked the richly decorated main entrance.
I will not attempt to describe the architecture, for
my father could give me little information on this
point. He only saw the west front for two or
three minutes, and was not impressed by it, save
in so far as it was richly ornamented — evidently at
great expense — and very large. Even if he had
had a longer look, I doubt whether I should have
got more out of him, for he knew nothing of archi-
tecture, and I fear his test whether a building was
good or bad, was whether it looked old and
weather-beaten or no. No matter what a building
was, if it was three or four hundred years old he
liked it, whereas, if it was new, he would look to
nothing but whether it kept the rain out. Indeed
I have heard him say that the mediaeval sculpture
on some of our great cathedrals often only pleases
us because time and weather have set their seals
upon it, and that if we could see it as it was when
it left the mason's hands, we should find it no
better than much that is now turned out in the
Euston Road.

The ground plan here given will help the reader
to understand the few following pages more easily.

The building was led up to by a flight of steps

(M), and on entering it my father found it to consist

of a spacious nave, with two aisles and an apse

which was raised some three feet above the nave

and aisles. There were no transepts. In the apse

184

d

ft*

)

E

|

0'

\\l

c

)'

o'
o'
d

k I '

o'
d
d

=D=

=ft=

B

c

o'.

sL

h

K

:jvl

Table with cashier's seat on
either side , and al ms-box in
front. The picture is ex-
hibited on a scaffolding be-
hind it.

The reliquary.

The President's chair.

Pulpit and lectern.

Side doors.

i. Vram's seat.

k. Seats of George and the Sun-
child.

o' Pillars.

A,B,C, D, E,F,G, H, blocks
of seats.

/. Steps leading from the apse
to the nave.

K and L. Towers.

M. Steps and main en-
trance.

N. Robing-room.

i8S

Erewhon Revisited

there was the table (a), with the two bowls of
Musical Bank money mentioned on an earlier
page, as also the alms-box in front of it.

At some little distance in front of the table stood
the President's chair (c), or I might almost call it
throne. It was so placed that his back would be
turned towards the table, which fact again shews
that the table was not regarded as having any
greater sanctity than the rest of the temple.

Behind the table, the picture already spoken of
was raised aloft. There was no balloon ; some
clouds that hung about the lower part of the
chariot served to conceal the fact that the painter
was uncertain whether it ought to have wheels or
no. The horses were without driver, and my
father thought that some one ought to have had
them in hand, for they were in far too excited a
state to be left safely to themselves. They had
hardly any harness, but what little there was was
enriched with gold bosses. My mother was in
Erewhonian costume, my father in European, but
he wore his clothes reversed. Both he and my
mother seemed to be bowing graciously to an un-
seen crowd beneath them, and in the distance, near
the bottom of the picture, was a fairly accurate re-
presentation of the Sunch'ston new temple. High
up, on the right hand, was a disc, raised and gilt, to
represent the sun ; on it, in low relief, there was an
indication of a gorgeous palace, in which, no doubt,
the sun was supposed to live ; though how they

made it all out my father could not conceive.

186

The Dedication

On the right of the table there was a reliquary {b)
of glass, much adorned with gold, or more probably
gilding, for gold was so scarce in Erewhon that
gilding would be as expensive as a thin plate of
gold would be in Europe : but there is no knowing.
The reliquary was attached to a portable stand
some five feet high, and inside it was the relic
already referred to. The crowd was so great that
my father could not get near enough to see what
it contained, but I may say here, that when, two
days later, circumstances compelled him to have a
close look at it, he saw that it consisted of about
a dozen fine coprolites, deposited by some ante-
diluvian creature or creatures, which, whatever else
they may have been, were certainly not horses.

In the apse there were a few cross benches (G
and H) on either side, with an open space between
them, which was partly occupied by the President's
seat already mentioned. Those on the right, as
one looked towards the apse, were for the Managers
and Cashiers of the Bank, while those on the left
were for their wives and daughters.

In the centre of the nave, only a few feet in front

of the steps leading to the apse, was a handsome

pulpit and lectern (d). The pulpit was raised some

feet above the ground, and was so roomy that the

preacher could walk about in it. On either side of

it there were cross benches with backs (E and F) ;

those on the right were reserved for the Mayor,

civic functionaries, and distinguished visitors, while

those on the left were for their wives and daughters.

187

Erewhon Revisited

Benches with backs (A, B, C, D) were placed
about half-way down both nave and aisles — those
in the nave being divided so as to allow a free
passage between them. The rest of the temple was
open space, about which people might walk at
their will. There were side doors (e, g} and/*, Ji) at
the upper and lower end of each aisle. Over the
main entrance was a gallery in which singers were
placed.

As my father was worming his way among the
crowd, which was now very dense, he was startled
at finding himself tapped lightly on the shoulder,
and turning round in alarm was confronted by
the beaming face of George.

" How do you do, Professor Panky ? " said the
youth — who had decided thus to address him.
"What are you doing here among the common
people ? Why have you not taken your place in
one of the seats reserved for our distinguished
visitors ? I am afraid they must be all full by
this time, but I will see what I can do for you.
Come with me."

"Thank you," said my father. His heart beat
so fast that this was all he could say, and he
followed meek as a lamb.

With some difficulty the two made their way to

the right-hand corner seats of block C, for every

seat in the reserved block was taken. The places

which George wanted for my father and for himself

were already occupied by two young men of about

eighteen and nineteen, both of them well-grown, and

188

The Dedication

of prepossessing appearance. My father saw by
the truncheons they carried that they were special
constables, but he took no notice of this, for
there were many others scattered about the crowd.
George whispered a few words to one of them,
and to my father's surprise they both gave up
their seats, which appear on the plan as {k).

It afterwards transpired that these two young
men were George's brothers, who by his desire
had taken the seats some hours ago, for it was here
that George had determined to place himself and
my father if he could find him. He chose these
places because they would be near enough to let
his mother (who was at z, in the middle of the front
row of block E, to the left of the pulpit) see my
father without being so near as to embarrass him ;
he could also see and be seen by Hanky, and
hear every word of his sermon ; but perhaps his
chief reason had been the fact that they were not
far from the side-door at the upper end of the right-
hand aisle, while there was no barrier to interrupt
rapid egress should this prove necessary.

It was now high time that they should sit down,
which they accordingly did. George sat at the
end of the bench, and thus had my father on his
left. My father was rather uncomfortable at seeing
the young men whom they had turned out, stand-
ing against a column close by, but George said
that this was how it was to be, and there was
nothing to be done but to submit. The young
men seemed quite happy, which puzzled my father,

Erewhon Revisited

who of course had no idea that their action was
preconcerted.

Panky was in the first row of block F, so that
my father could not see his face except sometimes
when he turned round. He was sitting on the
Mayor's right hand, while Dr. Downie was on his
left ; he looked at my father once or twice in a
puzzled way, as though he ought to have known
him, but my father did not think he recognised
him. Hanky was still with President Gurgoyle and
others in the robing-room, N ; Yram had already
taken her seat : my father knew her in a moment,
though he pretended not to do so when George
pointed her out to him. Their eyes met for a
second ; Yram turned hers quickly away, and my
father could not see a trace of recognition in her
face. At no time during the whole ceremony did
he catch her looking at him again.

"Why, you stupid man," she said to him later on
in the clay with a quick, kindly smile, " I was looking at
you all the time. As soon as the President or Hanky
began to talk about you I knew you would stare
at him, and then I could look. As soon as they
left off talking about you I knew you would be
looking at me, unless you went to sleep — and as
I did not know which you might be doing, I waited
till they began to talk about you again."

My father had hardly taken note of his surround-
ings when the choir began singing, accompanied by
a few feeble flutes and lutes, or whatever the name

of the instrument should be, but with no violins,

190

The Dedication

for he knew nothing of the violin, and had not been
able to teach the Erewhonians anything about it.
The voices were all in unison, and the tune they
sang was one which my father had taught Yram to
sing ; but he could not catch the words.

As soon as the singing began, a procession,
headed by the venerable Dr. Gurgoyle, President
of the Musical Banks of the province, began to
issue from the robing-room, and move towards the
middle of the apse. The President was sumptuously
dressed, but he wore no mitre, nor anything to sug-
gest an English or European Bishop. The Vice-
President, Head Manager, Vice-Manager, and some
Cashiers of the Bank, now ranged themselves on
either side of him, and formed an impressive group
as they stood, gorgeously arrayed, at the top of the
steps leading from the apse to the nave. Here they
waited till the singers left off singing.

When the litany, or hymn, or whatever it should

be called, was over, the Head Manager left the

President's side and came down to the lectern in

the nave, where he announced himself as about to

read some passages from the Sunchild's Sayings.

Perhaps because it was the first day of the year

according to their new calendar, the reading began

with the first chapter, the whole of which was read.

My father told me that he quite well remembered

having said the last verse, which he still held as

true ; hardly a word of the rest was ever spoken by

him, though he recognised his own influence in

almost all of it. The reader paused, with good

191

Erewhon Revisited

effect, for about five seconds between each para-
graph, and read slowly and very clearly. The
chapter was as follows : —

These are the words of the Sunchild about God and
man. He said —

i. God is the baseless basis of all thoughts, things, and
deeds.

2. So that those who say that there is a God, lie,
unless they also mean that there is no God ; and those who
say that there is no God, lie, unless they also mean that
there is a God.

3. It is very true to say that man is made after the
likeness of God ; and yet it is very untrue to say this.

4. God lives and moves in every atom throughout the
universe. Therefore it is wrong to think of Him as ' Him '
and ' He,' save as by the clutching of a drowning man at a
straw.

5. God is God to us only so long as we cannot see
Him. When we are near to seeing Him He vanishes, and
we behold Nature in His stead.

6. We approach Him most nearly when we think of
Him as our expression for Man's highest conception,
of goodness, wisdom, and power. But we cannot rise to
Him above the level of our own highest selves.

7. We remove ourselves most far from Him when we
invest Him with human form and attributes.

8. My father the sun, the earth, the moon, and all
planets that roll round my father, are to God but as a
single cell in our bodies to ourselves.

9. He is as much above my father, as my father is
above men and women.

10. The universe is instinct with the mind of God.

The mind of God is in all that has mind throughout all

192

The Dedication

worlds. There is no God but the Universe, and man, in
this world is His prophet.

ii. God's conscious life, nascent, so far as this world
is concerned, in the infusoria, adolescent in the higher
mammals, approaches maturity on this earth in man. All
these living beings are members one of another, and of God.

12. Therefore, as man cannot live without God in the
world, so neither can God live in this world without mankind.

13. If we speak ill of God in our ignorance it may be
forgiven us ; but if we speak ill of His Holy Spirit indwell-
ing in good men and women it may not be forgiven us."

The Head Manager now resumed his place by
President Gurgoyle's side, and the President in the
name of his Majesty the King declared the temple
to be hereby dedicated to the contemplation of the
Sunchild and the better exposition of his teaching.
This was all that was said. The reliquary was then
brought forward and placed at the top of the steps
leading from the apse to the nave ; but the original
intention of carrying it round the temple was aban-
doned for fear of accidents through the pressure
round it of the enormous multitudes who were
assembled. More singing followed of a simple but
impressive kind ; during this I am afraid I must
own that my father, tired with his walk, dropped
off into a refreshing slumber, from which he did
not wake till George nudged him and told him
not to snore, just as the Vice-Manager was going
towards the lectern to read another chapter of the
Sunchild's Sayings — which was as follows : —

The Sunchild also spoke to us a parable about the
unwisdom of the children yet unborn, who though they

i93 N

Erewhon Revisited

know so much, yet do not know as much as they think
they do.

He said : —

"The unborn have knowledge of one another so long
as they are unborn, and this without impediment from
walls or material obstacles. The unborn children in any
city form a population apart, who talk with one another
and tell each other about their developmental pro-
gress.

"They have no knowledge, and cannot even conceive
the existence of anything that is not such as they are
themselves. Those who have been born are to them what
the dead are to us. They can see no life in them, and
know no more about them than they do of any stage in
their own past development other than the one through
which they are passing at the moment. They do not even
know that their mothers are alive — much less that their
mothers were once as they now are. To an embryo, its
mother is simply the environment, and is looked upon
much as our inorganic surroundings are by ourselves.

"The great terror of their lives is the fear of birth, —
that they shall have to leave the only thing that they can
think of as life, and enter upon a dark unknown which is
to them tantamount to annihilation.

"Some, indeed, among them have maintained that
birth is not the death which they commonly deem it,
but that there is a life beyond the womb of which they
as yet know nothing, and which is a million fold more
truly life than anything they have yet been able even to
imagine. But the greater number shake their yet un-
fashioned heads and say they have no evidence for this
that will stand a moment's examination.

" ' Nay,' answer the others, 'so much work, so elaborate,
so wondrous as that whereon we are now so busily en-

'94

The Dedication

gaged must have a purpose, though the purpose is beyond
our grasp.'

"'Never,' reply the first speakers; 'our pleasure in the
work is sufficient justification for it. Who has ever par-
taken of this life you speak of, and re-entered into the
womb to tell us of it? Granted that some few have
pretended to have done this, but how completely have
their stories broken down when subjected to the tests of
sober criticism. No. When we are born we are born, and
there is an end of us.'

" But in the hour of birth, when they can no longer
re-enter the womb and tell the others, Behold ! they find
that it is not so."

Here the reader again closed his book and re-
sumed his place in the apse.

'95

CHAPTER XVI

PROFESSOR HANKY PREACHES A SERMON, IN THE
COURSE OF WHICH MY FATHER DECLARES HIM-
SELF TO BE THE SUNCHILD

Professor Hanky then went up into the pulpit,
richly but soberly robed in vestments the exact
nature of which I cannot determine. His carriage
was dignified, and the harsh lines on his face gave
it a strong individuality, which, though it did not
attract, conveyed an impression of power that
could not fail to interest. As soon as he had
given attention time to fix itself upon him, he
began his sermon without text or preliminary
matter of any kind, and apparently without notes.
He spoke clearly and very quietly, especially at
the beginning ; he used action whenever it could
point his meaning, or give it life and colour, but
there was no approach to staginess or even orato-
rical display. In fact, he spoke as one who meant
what he was saying, and desired that his hearers
should accept his meaning, fully confident in his
good faith. His use of pause was effective. After
the word " mistake," at the end of the opening
sentence, he held up his half-bent hand and
paused for full three seconds, looking intently at

his audience as he did so. Every one felt the

196

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

idea to be here enounced that was to dominate
the sermon.

The sermon— so much of it as I can find room
for — was as follows : —

" My friends, let there be no mistake. At such a
time, as this, it is well we should look back upon the
path by which we have travelled, and forward to
the goal towards which we are tending. As it was
necessary that the material foundations of this
building should be so sure that there shall be no
subsidence in the superstructure, so is it not less
necessary to ensure that there shall be no subsid-
ence in the immaterial structure that we have
raised in consequence of the Sunchild's sojourn
among us. Therefore, my friends, I again say, ' Let
there be no mistake.' Each stone that goes towards
the uprearing of this visible fane, each human soul
that does its part in building the invisible temple of
our national faith, is bearing witness to, and lending
its support to, that which is either the truth of
truths, or the baseless fabric of a dream.

" My friends, this is the only possible alternative.
He in whose name we are here assembled, is either
worthy of more reverential honour than we can ever
pay him, or he is worthy of no more honour than
any other honourable man among ourselves. There
can be no halting between these two opinions.
The question of questions is, was he the child of
the tutelary god of this world— the sun, and is it to
the palace of the sun that he returned when he left

us, or was he, as some amongst us still do not

197

Erewhon Revisited

hesitate to maintain, a mere man, escaping by un-
usual but strictly natural means to some part of
this earth with which we are unacquainted. My
friends, either we are on a right path or on a very
wrong one, and in a matter of such supreme im-
portance— there must be no mistake.

" I need not remind those of you whose privilege
it is to live in Sunch'ston, of the charm attendant
on the Sunchild's personal presence and conversa-
tion, nor of his quick sympathy, his keen intellect,
his readiness to adapt himself to the capacities of
all those who came to see him while he was in
prison. He adored children, and it was on them
that some of his most conspicuous miracles were
performed. Many a time when a child had fallen
and hurt itself, was he known to make the place
well by simply kissing it. Nor need I recall to
your minds the spotless purity of his life — so spot-
less that not one breath of slander has ever dared
to visit it. I was one of the not very many who
had the privilege of being admitted to the inner
circle of his friends during the later weeks that he
was amongst us. I loved him dearly, and it will
ever be the proudest recollection of my life that
he deigned to return me no small measure of
affection."

My father, furious as he was at finding himself

dragged into complicity with this man's imposture,

could not resist a smile at the effrontery with which

he lowered his tone here, and appeared unwilling

to dwell on an incident which he could not recall

198

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

without being affected almost to tears, and mere
allusion to which, had involved an apparent self-
display that was above all things repugnant to him.
What a difference between the Hanky of Thursday
evening with its " never set eyes on him and hope
I never shall," and the Hanky of Sunday morning,
who now looked as modest as Cleopatra might
have done had she been standing godmother to a
little blue-eyed girl — Bellerophon's first-born baby.

Having recovered from his natural, but promptly
repressed, emotion, the Professor continued : —

" I need not remind you of the purpose for which
so many of us, from so many parts of our kingdom,
are here assembled. We know what we have come
hither to do : we are come each one of us to sign
and seal by his presence the bond of his assent
to those momentous changes, which have found
their first great material expression in the temple
that you see around you.

" You all know how, in accordance with the ex-
pressed will of the Sunchild, the Presidents and
Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks began as soon
as he had left us to examine, patiently, carefully,
earnestly, and without bias of any kind, firstly the
evidences in support of the Sunchild's claim to be
the son of the tutelar deity of this world, and
secondly the precise nature of his instructions as
regards the future position and authority of the
Musical Banks.

" My friends, it is easy to understand why the

Sunchild should have given us these instructions.

199

Erewhon Revisited

With that foresight which is the special character-
istic of divine, as compared with human, wisdom,
he desired that the evidences in support of his
superhuman character should be collected, sifted,
and placed on record, before anything was either
lost through the death of those who could alone
substantiate it, or unduly supplied through the en-
thusiasm of over-zealous visionaries. The greater
any true miracle has been, the more certainly will
false ones accrete round it ; here, then, we find
the explanation of the command the Sunchild gave
to us to gather, verify, and record, the facts of his
sojourn here in Erewhon. For above all things
he held it necessary to ensure that there should be
neither mistake, nor even possibility of mistake.

" Consider for a moment what differences of
opinion would infallibly have arisen, if the evidences
for the miraculous character of the Sunchild's
mission had been conflicting — if they had rested
on versions each claiming to be equally authorita-
tive, but each hopelessly irreconcilable on vital
points with every single other. What would future
generations have said in answer to those who bade
them fling all human experience to the winds, on
the strength of records written they knew not cer-
tainly by whom, nor how long after the marvels
that they recorded, and of which all that could be
certainly said was that no two of them told the same
story ?

" Who that believes either in God or man — who
with any self-respect, or respect for the gift of

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

reason with which God had endowed him, either
would, or could, believe that a chariot and four
horses had come down from heaven, and gone back
again with human or quasi-human occupants, un-
less the evidences for the fact left no loophole for
escape ? If a single loophole were left him, he
would be unpardonable, not for disbelieving the
story, but for believing it. The sin against God
would lie not in want of faith, but in faith.

u My friends, there are two sins in matters of
belief. There is that of believing on too little
evidence, and that of requiring too much before
we are convinced. The guilt of the latter is in-
curred, alas ! by not a few amongst us at the
present day, but if the testimony to the truth of
the wondrous event so faithfully depicted on the
picture that confronts you had been less contempo-
raneous, less authoritative, less unanimous, future
generations — and it is for them that we should now
provide — would be guilty of the first-named, and
not less heinous sin if they believed at all.

"Small wonder, then, that the Sunchild, having
come amongst us for our advantage, not his own,
would not permit his beneficent designs to be
endangered by the discrepancies, mythical develop-
ments, idiosyncracies, and a hundred other defects
inevitably attendant on amateur and irresponsible
recording. Small wonder, then, that he should
have chosen the officials of the Musical Banks,
from the Presidents and Vice-Presidents down-
wards to be the authoritative exponents of his

Erewhon Revisited

teaching, the depositaries of his traditions, and his
representatives here on earth till he shall again see
fit to visit us. For he will come. Nay it is even
possible that he may be here amongst us at this
very moment, disguised so that none may know
him, and intent only on watching our devotion
towards him. If this be so, let me implore him, in
the name of the sun his father, to reveal himself."

Now Hanky had already given my father more
than one look that had made him uneasy. He had
evidently recognised him as the supposed ranger
of last Thursday evening. Twice he had run his
eye like a searchlight over the front benches
opposite to him, and when the beam had reached
my father there had been no more searching. It
was beginning to dawn upon my father that George
might have discovered that he was not Professor
Panky ; was it for this reason that these two young
special constables, though they gave up their
places, still kept so close to him ? Was George
only waiting his opportunity to arrest him — not of
course even suspecting who he was — but as a
foreign devil who had tried to pass himself off as
Professor Panky ? Had this been the meaning of
his having followed him to Fairmead ? And should
he have to be thrown into the Blue Pool by George
after all ? " It would serve me," said he to himself,
" richly right."

These fears which had been taking shape for
some few minutes were turned almost to certain-
ties by the half-contemptuous glance Hanky threw

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

towards him as he uttered what was obviously
intended as a challenge. He saw that all was
over, and was starting to his feet to declare him-
self, and thus fall into the trap that Hanky was
laying for him, when George gripped him tightly by
the knee and whispered, " Don't — you are in great
danger." And he smiled kindly as he spoke.

My father sank back dumbfounded. "You know
me ?" he whispered in reply.

" Perfectly. So does Hanky, so does my mother ;
say no more," and he again smiled.

George, as my father afterwards learned, had
hoped that he would reveal himself, and had deter-
mined in spite of his mother's instructions, to give
him an opportunity of doing so. It was for this
reason that he had not arrested him quietly, as
he could very well have done, before the service
began. He wished to discover what manner of
man his father was, and was quite happy as soon
as he saw that he would have spoken out if he had
not been checked. He had not yet caught Hanky's
motive in trying to goad my father, but on seeing
that he was trying to do this, he knew that a trap
was being laid, and that my father must not be
allowed to speak.

Almost immediately, however, he perceived that
while his eyes had been turned on Hanky, two
burly vergers had wormed their way through the
crowd and taken their stand close to his two bro-
thers. Then he understood, and understood also

how to frustrate.

203

Erewhon Revisited

As for my father, George's ascendancy over him
— quite felt by George — was so absolute that he
could think of nothing now but the exceeding great
joy of finding his fears groundless, and of deliver-
ing himself up to his son's guidance in the assur-
ance that the void in his heart was filled, and that
his wager not only would be held as won, but was
being already paid. How they had found out, why
he was not to speak as he would assuredly have
done — for he was in a white heat of fury — what did
it all matter now that he had found that which he
had feared he should fail to find ? He gave George
a puzzled smile, and composed himself as best he
could to hear the continuation of Hanky's sermon,
which was as follows : —

" Who could the Sunchild have chosen, even
though he had been gifted with no more than
human sagacity, but the body of men whom he
selected ? It becomes me but ill to speak so
warmly in favour of that body of whom I am the
least worthy member, but what other is there in
Erewhon so above all suspicion of slovenliness,
self-seeking, preconceived bias, or bad faith ? If
there was one set of qualities more essential than
another for the conduct of the investigations en-
trusted to us by the Sunchild, it was those that
turn on meekness and freedom from all spiritual
pride. I believe I can say quite truly that these
are the qualities for which Bridgeford is more espe-
cially renowned. The readiness of her Professors

to learn even from those who at first sight may

204

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

seem least able to instruct them — the gentleness
with which they correct an opponent if they feel
it incumbent upon them to do so, the promptitude
with which they acknowledge error when it is
pointed out to them and quit a position no matter
how deeply they have been committed to it, at the
first moment in which they see that they cannot
hold it righteously, their delicate sense of honour,
their utter immunity from what the Sunchild used
to call log-rolling or intrigue, the scorn with
which they regard anything like hitting below the
belt — these I believe I may truly say are the
virtues for which Bridgeford is pre-eminently re-
nowned."

The Professor went on to say a great deal more
about the fitness of Bridgeford and the Musical
Bank managers for the task imposed on them by the
Sunchild, but here my father's attention flagged —
nor, on looking at the verbatim report of the
sermon that appeared next morning in the leading
Sunch'ston journal, do I see reason to reproduce
Hanky's words on this head. It was all to shew
that there had been no possibility of mistake.

Meanwhile George was writing on a scrap of
paper as though he was taking notes of the sermon.
Presently he slipped this into my father's hand.
It ran : —

"You see those vergers standing near my

brothers, who gave up their seats to us. Hanky

tried to goad you into speaking that they might

arrest you, and get you into the Bank prisons. If

205

Erewhon Revisited

you fall into their hands you are lost. I must
arrest you instantly on a charge of poaching on the
King's preserves, and make you my prisoner. Let
those vergers catch sight of the warrant which I
shall now give you. Read it and return it to me.
Come with me quietly after service. I think you
had better not reveal yourself at all."

As soon as he had given my father time to read
the foregoing, George took a warrant out of his
pocket. My father pretended to read it and re-
turned it. George then laid his hand on his
shoulder, and in an undertone arrested him. He
then wrote on another scrap of paper and passed
it on to the elder of his two brothers. It was to
the effect that he had now arrested my father, and
that if the vergers attempted in any way to interfere
between him and his prisoner, his brothers were to
arrest both of them, which, as special constables,
they had power to do.

Yram had noted Hanky's attempt to goad my

father, and had not been prepared for his stealing a

march upon her by trying to get my father arrested

by Musical Bank officials, rather than by her son.

On the preceding evening this last plan had been

arranged on ; and she knew nothing of the note

that Hanky had sent an hour or two later to the

Manager of the temple — the substance of which

the reader can sufficiently guess. When she had

heard Hanky's words and saw the vergers, she

was for a few minutes seriously alarmed, but she

was reassured when she saw George give my father

206

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

the warrant, and her two sons evidently explaining
the position to the vergers.

Hanky had by this time changed his theme, and
was warning his hearers of the dangers that would
follow on the legalization of the medical profession,
and the repeal of the edicts against machines.
Space forbids me to give his picture of the horrible
tortures that future generations would be put to by
medical men, if these were not duly kept in check
by the influence of the Musical Banks ; the horrors
of the inquisition in the middle ages are nothing to
what he depicted as certain to ensue if medical men
were ever to have much money at their command.
The only people in whose hands money might be
trusted safely were those who presided over the
Musical Banks. This tirade was followed by one
not less alarming about the growth of materialistic
tendencies among the artisans employed in the
production of mechanical inventions. My father,
though his eyes had been somewhat opened by the
second of the two processions he had seen on his
way to Sunch'ston, was not prepared to find that in
spite of the superficially almost universal acceptance
of the new faith, there was a powerful, and it
would seem growing, undercurrent of scepticism,
with a desire to reduce his escape with my mother
to a purely natural occurence.

" It is not enough," said Hanky, " that the
Sunchild should have ensured the preparation
of authoritative evidence of his supernatural char-
acter. The evidences happily exist in overwhelm-

207

Erewhon Revisited

ing strength, but they must be brought home to
minds that as yet have stubbornly refused to
receive them. During the last five years there has
been an enormous increase in the number of those
whose occupation in the manufacture of machines
inclines them to a materialistic explanation even
of the most obviously miraculous events, and the
growth of this class in our midst constituted, and
still constitutes, a grave danger to the state.

" It was to meet this that the society was formed
on behalf of which I appeal fearlessly to your
generosity. It is called, as most of you doubtless
know, the Sunchild Evidence Society ; and his
Majesty the King graciously consented to become
its Patron. This society not only collects additional
evidences — indeed it is entirely due to its labours
that the precious relic now in this temple was dis-
covered— but it is its beneficent purpose to lay those
that have been authoritatively investigated before
men who, if left to themselves, would either neglect
them altogether, or worse still reject them.

" For the first year or two the efforts of the
society met with but little success among those
for whose benefit they were more particularly in-
tended, but during the present year the working
classes in some cities and towns (stimulated very
much by the lectures of my illustrious friend Pro-
fessor Panky) have shewn a most remarkable and
zealous interest in Sunchild evidences, and have
formed themselves into local branches for the study

and defence of Sunchild truth.

308

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

" Yet in spite of all this need — of all this patient
labour and really very gratifying success — the sub-
scriptions to the society no longer furnish it with
its former very modest income — an income which
is deplorably insufficient if the organization is to be
kept effective, and the work adequately performed.
In spite of the most rigid economy, the committee
have been compelled to part with a considerable
portion of their small reserve fund (provided by a
legacy) to tide over difficulties. But this method
of balancing expenditure and income is very un-
satisfactory, and cannot be long continued.

" I am led to plead for the society with especial
insistence at the present time, inasmuch as more
than one of those whose unblemished life has made
them fitting recipients of such a signal favour, have
recently had visions informing them that the Sun-
child will again shortly visit us. We know not
when he will come, but when he comes, my friends,
let him not find us unmindful of, nor ungrateful for,
the inestimable services he has rendered us. For
come he surely will. Either in winter, what time
icicles hang by the wall and milk comes frozen home
in the pail — or in summer when days are at their
longest and the mowing grass is about — there will
be an hour, either at morn, or eve, or in the middle
day, when he will again surely come. May it be
mine to be among those who are then present to
receive him."

Here he again glared at my father, whose blood

was boiling. George had not positively forbidden

209 O

Erewhon Revisited

him to speak out ; he therefore sprang to his feet,
" You lying hound," he cried, " I am the Sunchild,
and you know it."

George, who knew that he had my father in his
own hands, made no attempt to stop him, and
was delighted that he should have declared himself
though he had felt it his duty to tell him not to
do so. Yram turned pale. Hanky roared out,
"Tear him in pieces — leave not a single limb on
his body. Take him out and burn him alive."
The vergers made a dash for him — but George's
brothers seized them. The crowd seemed for a
moment inclined to do as Hanky bade them, but
Yram rose from her place, and held up her hand
as one who claimed attention. She advanced to-
wards George and my father as unconcernedly
as though she were merely walking out of church,
but she still held her hand uplifted. All eyes
were turned on her, as well as on George and my
father, and the icy calm of her self-possession
chilled those who were inclined for the moment
to take Hanky's words literally. There was not
a trace of fluster in her gait, action, or words, as
she said —

" My friends, this temple, and this day, must not
be profaned with blood. My son will take this
poor madman to the prison. Let him be judged
and punished according to law. Make room, that
he and my son may pass."

Then, turning to my father, she said, " Go quietly
with the Ranger."

Prof. Hanky's Sermon

Having so spoken, she returned to her seat as
unconcernedly as she had left it.

Hanky for a time continued to foam at the mouth
and roar out, " Tear him to pieces ! burn him
alive ! " but when he saw that there was no further
hope of getting the people to obey him, he collapsed
on to a seat in his pulpit, mopped his bald head,
and consoled himself with a great pinch of a powder
which corresponds very closely to our own snuff.

George led my father out by the side door at the
north end of the western aisle ; the people eyed
him intently, but made way for him without de-
monstration. One voice alone was heard to cry
out, " Yes, he is the Sunchild ! " My father glanced
at the speaker, and saw that he was the interpreter
who had taught him the Erewhonian language
when he was in prison.

George, seeing a special constable close by, told
him to bid his brothers release the vergers, and let
them arrest the interpreter — this the vergers, foiled
as they had been in the matter of my father's arrest,
were very glad to do. So the poor interpreter, to
his dismay, was lodged at once in one of the Bank
prison-cells, where he could do no further harm.

CHAPTER XVII

GEORGE TAKES HIS FATHER TO PRISON, AND THERE
OBTAINS SOME USEFUL INFORMATION

By this time George had got my father into the open
square, where he was surprised to find that a large
bonfire had been made and lighted. There had
been nothing of the kind an hour before ; the
wood, therefore, must have been piled and lighted
while people had been in church. He had no time
at the moment to enquire why this had been done,
but later on he discovered that on the Sunday
morning the Manager of the new temple had ob-
tained leave from the Mayor to have the wood
piled in the square, representing that this was
Professor Hanky's contribution to the festivities
of the day. There had, it seemed, been no inten-
tion of lighting it until nightfall ; but it had acci-
dentally caught fire through the carelessness of a
workman, much about the time when Hanky began
to preach. No one for a moment believed that
there had been any sinister intention, or that Pro-
fessor Hanky when he urged the crowd to burn
my father alive, even knew that there was a pile
of wood in the square at all — much less that it had
been lighted — for he could hardly have supposed
that the wood had been got together so soon.

In Prison

Nevertheless both George and my father, when
they knew all that had passed, congratulated them-
selves on the fact that my father had not fallen into
the hands of the vergers, who would probably have
tried to utilise the accidental fire, though in no case
is it likely they would have succeeded.

As soon as they were inside the gaol, the old
Master recognised my father. " Bless my heart —
what ? You here, again, Mr. Higgs ? Why, I
thought you were in the palace of the sun of your
father."

" I wish I was," answered my father, shaking
hands with him, but he could say no more.

"You are as safe here as if you were," said
George laughing, "and safer." Then turning to
his grandfather, he said, " You have the record of
Mr. Higgs's marks and measurements ? I know
you have : take him to his old cell ; it is the best
in the prison ; and then please bring me the
record."

The old man took George and my father to the
cell which he had occupied twenty years earlier —
but I cannot stay to describe his feelings on find-
ing himself again within it. The moment his
grandfather's back was turned, George said to my
father, " And now shake hands also with your son."

As he spoke he took my father's hand and
pressed it warmly between both his own.

"Then you know you are my son," said my
father as steadily as the strong emotion that
mastered him would permit.

Erewhon Revisited

" Certainly."

" But you did not know this when I was walking
with you on Friday ? "

" Of course not. I thought you were Professor
Panky ; if I had not taken you for one of the
two persons named in your permit, I should have
questioned you closely, and probably ended by
throwing you into the Blue Pool." He shuddered
as he said this.

" But you knew who I was when you called me
Panky in the temple ? "

" Quite so. My mother told me everything on
Friday evening."

"And that is why you tried to find me at Fair-
mead ?"

" Yes, but where in the world were you ? "

" I was inside the Musical Bank of the town,
resting and reading."

George laughed, and said, " On purpose to
hide ? "

" Oh no ; pure chance. But on Friday even-
ing ? How could your mother have found out
by that time that I was in Erewhon ? Am I on
my head or my heels ?"

" On your heels, my father, which shall take you
back to your own country as soon as we can get
you out of this."

"What have I done to deserve so much good-
will ? I have done you nothing but harm ? " Again
he was quite overcome.

George patted him gently on the hand, and said,
214

In Prison

"You made a bet and you won it. During the
very short time that we can be together, you shall
be paid in full, and may heaven protect us both."

As soon as my father could speak he said, " But
how did your mother find out that I was in Ere-
whon ? "

" Hanky and Panky were dining with her, and
they told her some things that she thought strange.
She cross-questioned them, put two and two to-
gether, learned that you had got their permit out
of them, saw that you intended to return on
Friday, and concluded that you would be sleeping
in Sunch'ston. She sent for me, told me all, bade
me scour Sunch'ston to find you, intending that
you should be at once escorted safely over the
preserves by me. I found your inn, but you had
given us the slip. I tried first Fairmead and then
Clearwater, but did not find you till this morning.
For reasons too long to repeat, my mother warned
Hanky and Panky that you would be in the temple ;
whereon Hanky tried to get you into his clutches.
Happily he failed, but if I had known what he was
doing I should have arrested you before the ser-
vice. I ought to have done this, but I wanted you
to win your wager, and I shall get you safely away
in spite of them. My mother will not like my
having let you hear Hanky's sermon and declare
yourself."

"You half told me not to say who I was."

u Yes, but I was delighted when you disobeyed
me."

Erewhon Revisited

" I did it very badly. I never rise to great occa-
sions, I always fall to them, but these things must
come as they come."

" You did it as well as it could be done, and good
will come of it."

"And now," he continued, "describe exactly all
that passed between you and the Professors. On
which side of Panky did Hanky sit, and did they
sit north and south or east and west ? How did

you get oh yes, I know that — you told them it

would be of no further use to them. Tell me all
else you can."

My father said that the Professors were sitting
pretty well east and west, so that Hanky, who was
on the east side, nearest the mountains, had Panky,
who was on the Sunch'ston side, on his right hand.
George made a note of this. My father then told
what the reader already knows, but when he came
to the measurement of the boots, George said,
"Take your boots off," and began taking off his
own. " Foot for foot," said he, "we are not father
and son, but brothers. Yours will fit me ; they are
less worn than mine, but I daresay you will not
mind that."

On this George ex abundanti cauteld knocked a

nail out of the right boot that he had been wearing

and changed boots with my father ; but he thought

it more plausible not to knock out exactly the same

nail that was missing on my father's boot. When

the change was made, each found — or said he found

— the other's boots quite comfortable.

216

In Prison

My father all the time felt as though he were a
basket given to a dog. The dog had got him, was
proud of him, and no one must try to take him away.
The promptitude with which George took to him,
the obvious pleasure he had in "running" him,
his quick judgement, verging as it should towards
rashness, his confidence that my father trusted him
without reserve, the conviction of perfect openness
that was conveyed by the way in which his eyes
never budged from my father's when he spoke to
him, his genial, kindly, manner, perfect physical
health, and the air he had of being on the best
possible terms with himself and every one else —
the combination of all this so overmastered my
poor father (who indeed had been sufficiently
mastered before he had been five minutes in
George's company) that he resigned himself as
gratefully to being a basket, as George had cheer-
fully undertaken the task of carrying him.

In passing I may say that George could never
get his own boots back again, though he tried more
than once to do so. My father always made some
excuse. They were the only memento of George
that he brought home with him ; I wonder that he
did not ask for a lock of his hair, but he did not.
He had the boots put against a wall in his bed-
room, where he could see them from his bed, and
during his illness, while consciousness yet remained
with him, I saw his eyes continually turn towards
them. George, in fact, dominated him as long as

anything in this world could do so. Nor do I

217

Erewhon Revisited

wonder ; on the contrary, I love his memory the
better ; for I too, as will appear later, have seen
George, and whatever little jealousy I may have
felt, vanished on my finding him almost instan-
taneously gain the same ascendancy over me his
brother, that he had gained over his and my father.
But of this no more at present. Let me return to
the gaol in Sunchfston.

"Tell me more," said George, "about the Pro-
fessors."

My father told him about the nuggets, the sale
of his kit, the receipt he had given for the money,
and how he had got the nuggets back from a tree,
the position of which he described.

"I know the tree; have you got the nuggets here?"

" Here they are, with the receipt, and the pocket
handkerchief marked with Hanky's name. The
pocket handkerchief was found wrapped round
some dried leaves that we call tea, but I have not
got these with me." As he spoke he gave every-
thing to George, who showed the utmost delight
in getting possession of them.

" I suppose the blanket and the rest of the kit
are still in the tree ? "

" Unless Hanky and Panky have got them away,
or some one has found them."

"This is not likely. I will now go to my office,

but I will come back very shortly. My grandfather

shall bring you something to eat at once. I will

tell him to send enough for two" — which he

accordingly did.

218

In Prison

On reaching the office, he told his next brother
(whom he had made an under-ranger) to go to the
tree he described, and bring back the bundle he
should find concealed therein. "You can go there
and back," he said, " in an hour and a half, and I
shall want the bundle by that time."

The brother, whose name I never rightly caught,
set out at once. As soon as he was gone, George
took from a drawer the feathers and bones of
quails, that he had shown my father on the
morning when he met him. He divided them in
half, and made them into two bundles, one of
which he docketed, " Bones of quails eaten, XIX.
xii. 29, by Professor Hanky, P.O.W.W., &c." And
he labelled Panky's quail bones in like fashion.

Having done this, he returned to the gaol, but on
his way he looked in at the Mayor's, and left a note
saying that he should be at the gaol, where any
message would reach him, but that he did not wish
to meet Professors Hanky and Panky for another
couple of hours. It was now about half-past
twelve, and he caught sight of a crowd coming
quietly out of the temple, whereby he knew that
Hanky would soon be at the Mayor's house.

Dinner was brought in almost at the moment
when George returned to the gaol. As soon as it
was over George said : —

" Are you quite sure you have made no mistake

about the way in which you got the permit out of

the Professors ?"

" Quite sure. I told them they would not want
219

Erewhon Revisited

it, and said I could save them trouble if they gave
it me. They never suspected why I wanted it.
Where do you think I may be mistaken ?"

"You sold your nuggets for rather less than a
twentieth part of their value, and you threw in
some curiosities, that would have fetched about
half as much as you got for the nuggets. You
say you did this because you wanted money to
keep you going till you could sell some of your
nuggets. This sounds well at first, but the sacrifice
is too great to be plausible when considered. It
looks more like a case of good honest manly
straightforward corruption."

" But surely you believe me ? "

"Of course I do. I believe every syllable that
comes from your mouth, but I shall not be able to
make out that the story was as it was not, unless I
am quite certain what it really was."

" It was exactly as I have told you."

"That is enough. And now, may I tell my
mother that you will put yourself in her, and the
Mayor's, and my, hands, and will do whatever
we tell you ? "

" I will be obedience itself — but you will not ask
me to do anything that will make your mother or
you think less well of me ? "

" If we tell you what you are to do, we shall not
think any the worse of you for doing it. Then I
may say to my mother that you will be good and
give no trouble — not even though we bid you shake
hands with Hanky and Panky ?"

In Prison

" I will embrace them and kiss them on both
cheeks, if you and she tell me to do so. But what
about the Mayor ? "

"He has known everything, and condoned every-
thing, these last twenty years. He will leave every-
thing to my mother and me."

"Shall I have to see him?"

"Certainly. You must be brought up before
him to-morrow morning."

" How can I look him in the face ? "

"As you would me, or any one else. It is under-
stood among us that nothing happened. Things
may have looked as though they had happened,
but they did not happen."

" And you are not yet quite twenty ? "

" No, but I am son to my mother — and," he
added, "to one who can stretch a point or two
in the way of honesty as well as other people."

Having said this with a laugh, he again took my
father's hand between both his, and went back to
his office — where he set himself to think out the
course he intended to take when dealing with the
Professors.

CHAPTER XVIII

YRAM INVITES DR. DOWNIE AND MRS. HUMDRUM
TO LUNCHEON — A PASSAGE AT ARMS BETWEEN
HER AND HANKY IS AMICABLY ARRANGED

The disturbance caused by my father's outbreak
was quickly suppressed, for George got him out
of the temple almost immediately ; it was bruited
about, however, that the Sunchild had come down
from the palace of the sun, but had disappeared
as soon as any one had tried to touch him. In
vain did Hanky try to put fresh life into his sermon ;
its back had been broken, and large numbers left
the church to see what they could hear outside,
or failing information, to discourse more freely
with one another.

Hanky did his best to quiet his hearers when
he found that he could not infuriate them, —

"This poor man," he said, "is already known to
me, as one of those who have deluded themselves
into believing that they are the Sunchild. I have
known of his so declaring himself, more than once,
in the neighbourhood of Bridgeford, and others
have not infrequently done the same. I did not at
first recognize him, and regret that the shock of
horror his words occasioned me should have
prompted me to suggest violence against him. Let

222

After Service

this unfortunate affair pass from your minds, and
let me again urge upon you the claims of the
Sunchild Evidence Society."

The audience on hearing that they were to be
told more about the Sunchild Evidence Society
melted away even more rapidly than before, and
the sermon fizzled out to an ignominious end quite
unworthy of its occasion.

About half-past twelve, the service ended, and
Hanky went to the robing-room to take off his
vestments. Yram, the Mayor, and Panky, waited
for him at the door opposite to that through which
my father had been taken ; while waiting, Yram
scribbled off two notes in pencil, one to Dr. Downie,
and another to Mrs. Humdrum, begging them to
come to lunch at once — for it would be one o'clock
before they could reach the Mayor's. She gave
these notes to the Mayor, and bade him bring both
the invited guests along with him.

The Mayor left just as Hanky was coming to-
wards her. "This, Mayoress," he said with some
asperity, " is a very serious business. It has ruined
my collection. Half the people left the temple
without giving anything at all. You seem," he
added in a tone the significance of which could not
be mistaken, "to be very fond, Mayoress, of this
Mr. Higgs."

" Yes," said Yram, "I am ; I always liked him,

and I am sorry for him ; but he is not the person

I am most sorry for at this moment — he, poor man,

is not going to be horsewhipped within the next

223

Erewhon Revisited

twenty minutes." And she spoke the " he " in
italics.

" I do not understand you, Mayoress."

" My husband will explain, as soon as I have
seen him."

" Hanky," said Panky, "you must withdraw, and
apologise at once."

Hanky was not slow to do this, and when he
had disavowed everything, withdrawn everything,
apologised for everything, and eaten humble pie
to Yram's satisfaction, she smiled graciously, and
held out her hand, which Hanky was obliged to
take.

" And now, Professor," she said, " let me return
to your remark that this is a very serious business,
and let me also claim a woman's privilege of being
listened to whenever she chooses to speak. I pro-
pose, then, that we say nothing further about this
matter till after luncheon. I have asked Dr. Downie
and Mrs. Humdrum to join us "

"Why Mrs. Humdrum?" interrupted Hanky
none too pleasantly, for he was still furious about
the duel that had just taken place between himself
and his hostess.

" My dear Professor," said Yram good-humouredly,
" pray say all you have to say and I will continue."

Hanky was silent.

" I have asked," resumed Yram, " Dr. Downie

and Mrs. Humdrum to join us, and after luncheon

we can discuss the situation or no as you may think

proper. Till then let us say no more. Luncheon

224

After Service

will be over by two o'clock or soon after, and the
banquet will not begin till seven, so we shall have
plenty of time."

Hanky looked black and said nothing. As for
Panky he was morally in a state of collapse, and
did not count.

Hardly had they reached the Mayor's house
when the Mayor also arrived with Dr. Downie and
Mrs. Humdrum, both of whom had seen and recog-
nised my father in spite of his having dyed his hair.
Dr. Downie had met him at supper in Mr. Thims's
rooms when he had visited Bridgeford, and naturally
enough had observed him closely. Mrs. Humdrum,
as I have already said, had seen him more than once
when he was in prison. She and Dr. Downie were
talking earnestly over the strange reappearance of
one whom they had believed long since dead, but
Yram imposed on them the same silence that she
had already imposed on the Professors.

" Professor Hanky," said she to Mrs. Humdrum,
in Hanky's hearing, " is a little alarmed at my having
asked you to join our secret conclave. He is not
married, and does not know how well a woman can
hold her tongue when she chooses. I should have
told you all that passed, for I mean to follow your
advice, so I thought you had better hear everything
yourself."

Hanky still looked black, but he said nothing.

Luncheon was promptly served, and done justice to

in spite of much preoccupation ; for if there is one

thing that gives a better appetite than another, it is

225 P

Erewhon Revisited

a Sunday morning's service with a charity sermon
to follow. As the guests might not talk on the sub-
ject they wanted to talk about, and were in no
humour to speak of anything else, they gave their
whole attention to the good things that were before
them, without so much as a thought about reserving
themselves for the evening's banquet. Neverthe-
less, when luncheon was over, the Professors were
in no more genial, manageable, state of mind than
they had been when it began.

When the servants had left the room, Yram said
to Hanky, "You saw the prisoner, and he was the
man you met on Thursday night ?"

" Certainly, he was wearing the forbidden dress
and he had many quails in his possession. There
is no doubt also that he was a foreign devil."

At this point, it being now nearly half-past two,
George came in, and took a seat next to Mrs. Hum-
drum— between her and his mother — who of course
sat at the head of the table with the Mayor opposite
to her. On one side of the table sat the Professors,
and on the other Dr. Downie, Mrs. Humdrum, and
George, who had heard the last few words that
Hanky had spoken.

226

CHAPTER XIX

A COUNCIL IS HELD AT THE MAYOR'S, IN THE
COURSE OF WHICH GEORGE TURNS THE TABLES
ON THE PROFESSORS

"Now who," said Yram, "is this unfortunate
creature to be, when he is brought up to-morrow
morning, on the charge of poaching ? "

" It is not necessary," said Hanky severely, " that
he should be brought up for poaching. He is a
foreign devil, and as such your son is bound to
fling him without trial into the Blue Pool. Why
bring a smaller charge when you must inflict the
death penalty on a more serious one ? I have
already told you that I shall feel it my duty to
report the matter at headquarters, unless I am
satisfied that the death penalty has been inflicted."

"Of course," said George, "we must all of us
do our duty, and I shall not shrink from mine —
but I have arrested this man on a charge of poach-
ing, and must give my reasons ; the case cannot
be dropped, and it must be heard in public. Am
I, or am I not, to have the sworn depositions of
both you gentlemen to the fact that the prisoner
is the man you saw with quails in his possession ?
If you can depose to this he will be convicted,

for there can be no doubt he killed the birds him-

227

Erewhon Revisited

self. The least penalty my father can inflict is
twelve months' imprisonment with hard labour ;
and he must undergo this sentence before I can
Blue-Pool him.

"Then comes the question whether or no he
is a foreign devil. I may decide this in private,
but I must have depositions on oath before I do
so, and at present I have nothing but hearsay.
Perhaps you gentlemen can give me the evidence
I shall require, but the case is one of such import-
ance that were the prisoner proved never so clearly
to be a foreign devil, I should not Blue-Pool him
till I had taken the King's pleasure concerning him.
I shall rejoice, therefore, if you gentlemen can
help me to sustain the charge of poaching, and
thus give me legal standing-ground for deferring
action which the King might regret, and which once
taken cannot be recalled."

Here Yram interposed. "These points," she
said, " are details. Should we not first settle, not
what, but who, we shall allow the prisoner to be,
when he is brought up to-morrow morning ? Settle
this, and the rest will settle itself. He has declared
himself to be the Sunchild, and will probably do
so again. I am prepared to identify him, so is
Dr. Downie, so is Mrs. Humdrum, the interpreter,
and doubtless my father. Others of known respec-
tability will also do so, and his marks and measure-
ments are sure to correspond quite sufficiently.
The question is, whether all this is to be allowed

to appear on evidence, or whether it is to be estab-

228

A Council

lished, as it easily may, if we give our minds to it,
that he is not the Sunchild."

"Whatever else he is," said Hanky, "he must
not be the Sunchild. He must, if the charge of
poaching cannot be dropped, be a poacher and a
foreign devil. I was doubtless too hasty when I
said that I believed I recognized the man as one
who had more than once declared himself to be
the Sunchild "

"But, Hanky," interrupted Panky, "are you
sure that you can swear to this man's being the
man we met on Thursday night ? We only saw
him by firelight, and I doubt whether I should feel
justified in swearing to him."

"Well, well : on second thoughts I am not sure,
Panky, but what you may be right after all ; it is
possible that he may be what I said he was in my
sermon."

" I rejoice to hear you say so," said George, " for
in this case the charge of poaching will fall through.
There will be no evidence against the prisoner.
And I rejoice also to think that I shall have nothing
to warrant me in believing him to be a foreign
devil. For if he is not to be the Sunchild, and
not to be your poacher, he becomes a mere mono-
maniac. If he apologises for having made a dis-
turbance in the temple, and promises not to offend
again, a fine, and a few days' imprisonment, will
meet the case, and he may be discharged."

" I see, I see," said Hanky very angrily. " You

are determined to get this man off if you can."

229

Erewhon Revisited

" i shall act," said George, " in accordance with
sworn evidence, and not otherwise. Choose whether
you will have the prisoner to be your poacher or
no : give me your sworn depositions one way or
the other, and I shall know how to act. If you
depose on oath to the identity of the prisoner and
your poacher, he will be convicted and imprisoned.
As to his being a foreign devil, if he is the Sun-
child, of course he is one ; but otherwise I cannot
Blue-Pool him even when his sentence is expired,
without testimony deposed to me on oath in pri-
vate, though no open trial is required. A case for
suspicion was made out in my hearing last night,
but I must have depositions on oath to all the
leading facts before I can decide what my duty is.
What will you swear to ? "

"All this," said Hanky, in a voice husky with
passion, "shall be reported to the King."

" I intend to report every word of it ; but that is
not the point : the question is what you gentlemen
will swear to ? "

"Very well. I will settle it thus. We will swear
that the prisoner is the poacher we met on Thurs-
day night, and that he is also a foreign devil : his
wearing the forbidden dress ; his foreign accent ;
the foot-tracks we found in the snow, as of one
coming over from the other side ; his obvious
ignorance of the Afforesting Act, as shown by his
having lit a fire and making no effort to conceal
his quails till our permit shewed him his blunder ;

the cock-and-bull story he told us about your

230

A Council

orders, and that other story about his having killed
a foreign devil — if these facts do not satisfy you,
they will satisfy the King that the prisoner is a
foreign devil as well as a poacher."

" Some of these facts," answered George, " are
new to me. How do you know that the foot-tracks
were made by the prisoner ? "

Panky brought out his note-book and read the
details he had noted.

" Did you examine the man's boots ?"

" One of them, the right foot ; this, with the mea-
surements, was quite enough."

" Hardly. Please to look at both soles of my
own boots ; you will find that those tracks were
mine. I will have the prisoner's boots examined ;
in the meantime let me tell you that I was up at
the statues on Thursday morning, walked three or
four hundred yards beyond them, over ground
where there was less snow, returned over the
snow, and went two or three times round them,
as it is the Ranger's duty to do once a year in
order to see that none of them are beginning to
lean."

He showed the soles of his boots, and the Pro-
fessors were obliged to admit that the tracks were
his. He cautioned them as to the rest of the points
on which they relied. Might they not be as mis-
taken, as they had just proved to be about the
tracks ? He could not, however, stir them from
sticking to it that there was enough evidence to
prove my father to be a foreign devil, and declaring

Erewhon Revisited

their readiness to depose to the facts on oath. In
the end Hanky again fiercely accused him of trying
to shield the prisoner.

" You are quite right," said George, " and you
will see my reasons shortly."

" I have no doubt," said Hanky significantly,
" that they are such as would weigh with any man
of ordinary feeling."

" I understand, then," said George, appearing to
take no notice of Hanky's innuendo, "that you will
swear to the facts as you have above stated them ? "

" Certainly."

"Then kindly wait while I write them on the
form that I have brought with me ; the Mayor can
administer the oath and sign your depositions. I
shall then be able to leave you, and proceed with
getting up the case against the prisoner."

So saying, he went to a writing-table in another
part of the room, and made out the depositions.

Meanwhile the Mayor, Mrs. Humdrum, and Dr.
Downie (who had each of them more than once
vainly tried to take part in the above discussion)
conversed eagerly in an undertone among them-
selves. Hanky was blind with rage, for he had a
sense that he was going to be outwitted ; the Mayor,
Yram, and Mrs. Humdrum had already seen that
George thought he had all the trumps in his own
hand, but they did not know more. Dr. Downie
was frightened, and Panky so muddled as to be
hors de combat.

George now rejoined the Professors, and read
232

A Council

the depositions : the Mayor administered the oath
according to Erewhonian custom ; the Professors
signed without a word, and George then handed
the document to his father to countersign.

The Mayor examined it, and almost immediately
said, " My dear George, you have made a mistake ;
these depositions are on a form reserved for depo-
nents who are on the point of death."

" Alas ! " answered George, " there is no help for
it. I did my utmost to prevent their signing. I
knew that those depositions were their own death
warrant, and that is why, though I was satisfied
that the prisoner is a foreign devil, I had hoped to
be able to shut my eyes. I can now no longer do
so, and as the inevitable consequence, I must Blue-
Pool both the Professors before midnight. What
man of ordinary feeling would not under these
circumstances have tried to dissuade them from
deposing as they have done ? "

By this time the Professors had started to their
feet, and there was a look of horrified astonishment
on the faces of all present, save that of George, who
seemed quite happy.

" What monstrous absurdity is this ? " shouted
Hanky ; " do you mean to murder us ? "

" Certainly not. But you have insisted that I
should do my duty, and I mean to do it. You
gentlemen have now been proved to my satisfaction
to have had traffic with a foreign devil ; and under
section 37 of the Afforesting Act, I must at once
Blue-Pool any such persons without public trial."
233

Erewhon Revisited

" Nonsense, nonsense, there was nothing of the
kind on our permit, and as for trafficking with this
foreign devil, we spoke to him, but we neither
bought nor sold. Where is the Act ?"

" Here. On your permit you were referred to cer-
tain other clauses not set out therein, which might
be seen at the Mayor's office. Clause 37 is as
follows : —

" It is furthermore enacted that should any of his
Majesty's subjects be found, after examination by the Head
Ranger, to have had traffic of any kind by way of sale or
barter with any foreign devil, the said Ranger, on being
satisfied that such traffic has taken place, shall forthwith,
with or without the assistance of his under-rangers, convey
such subjects of his Majesty to the Blue Pool, bind them,
weight them, and fling them into it, without the formality
of a trial, and shall report the circumstances of the case to
his Majesty."

" But we never bought anything from the prisoner.
What evidence can you have of this but the word of
a foreign devil in such straits that he would swear
to anything ? "

"The prisoner has nothing to do with it. I am
convinced by this receipt in Professor Panky's
handwriting which states that he and you jointly
purchased his kit from the prisoner, and also this bag
of gold nuggets worth about ^100 in silver, for the
absurdly small sum of .£4, 10s. in silver. I am
further convinced by this handkerchief marked with
Professor Panky's name, in which was found a
broken packet of dried leaves that are now at my
office with the rest of the prisoner's kit."

234

A Council

"Then we were watched and dogged," said
Hanky, " on Thursday evening."

"That, sir," replied George, "is my business, not
yours."

Here Panky laid his arms on the table, buried
his head in them, and burst into tears. Every one
seemed aghast, but the Mayor, Yram, and Mrs.
Humdrum saw that George was enjoying it all
far too keenly to be serious. Dr. Downie was still
frightened (for George's surface manner was Rhada-
manthine) and did his utmost to console Panky.
George pounded away ruthlessly at his case.

" I say nothing about your having bought quails
from the prisoner and eaten them. As you justly
remarked just now, there is no object in preferring
a smaller charge when one must inflict the death
penalty on a more serious one. Still, Professor
Hanky, these are bones of the quails you ate as
you sate opposite the prisoner on the side of the
fire nearest Sunch'ston ; these are Professor Panky's
bones, with which I need not disturb him. This is
your permit, which was found upon the prisoner,
and which there can be no doubt you sold him,
having been bribed by the offer of the nuggets
for "

" Monstrous, monstrous ! Infamous falsehood !
Who will believe such a childish trumped up
story ! "

"Who, sir, will believe anything else? You
will hardly contend that you did not know the
nuggets were gold, and no one will believe you

235

Erewhon Revisited

mean enough to have tried to get this poor man's
property out of him for a song — you knowing its
value, and he not knowing the same. No one will
believe that you did not know the man to be a
foreign devil, or that he could hoodwink two such
learned Professors so cleverly as to get their per-
mit out of them. Obviously he seduced you into
selling him your permit, and — I presume because
he wanted a little of our money — he made you
pay him for his kit. I am satisfied that you have
not only had traffic with a foreign devil, but traffic
of a singularly atrocious kind, and this being so,
I shall Blue-Pool both of you as soon as I can
get you up to the Pool itself. The sooner we
start the better. I shall gag you, and drive you
up in a close carriage as far as the road goes ;
from that point you can walk up, or be dragged
up as you may prefer, but you will probably find
walking more comfortable."

" But," said Hanky, " come what may, I must be
at the banquet. I am set down to speak."

"The Mayor will explain that you have been
taken somewhat suddenly unwell."

Here Yram, who had been talking quietly with
her husband, Dr. Downie, and Mrs. Humdrum,
motioned her son to silence.

"I feared," she said, "that difficulties might
arise, though I did not foresee how seriously
they would affect my guests. Let Mrs. Humdrum
on our side, and Dr. Downie on that of the Pro-
fessors, go into the next room and talk the matter

236

A Council

quietly over ; let us then see whether we cannot
agree to be bound by their decision. I do not
doubt but they will find some means of averting
any catastrophe more serious — No,Professor Hanky,
the doors are locked — than a little perjury in
which we shall all share and share alike."

" Do what you like," said Hanky, looking for all
the world like a rat caught in a trap. As he spoke
he seized a knife from the table, whereon George
pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and
slipped them on to his wrists before he well knew
what was being done to him.

"George," said the Mayor, "this is going too
far. Do you mean to Blue-Pool the Professors
or no?"

"Not if they will compromise. If they will be
reasonable, they will not be Blue- Pooled ; if they
think they can have everything their own way, the
eels will be at them before morning."

A voice was heard from the head of Panky which
he had buried in his arms upon the table. "Co —
co — co — co — compromise," it said ; and the effect
was so comic that every one except Hanky smiled.
Meanwhile Yram had conducted Dr. Downie and
Mrs. Humdrum into an adjoining room.

237

CHAPTER XX

MRS. HUMDRUM AND DR. DOWNIE PROPOSE A COM-
PROMISE, WHICH, AFTER AN AMENDMENT BY
GEORGE, IS CARRIED NEM. CON.

They returned in about ten minutes, and Dr.
Downie asked Mrs. Humdrum to say what they
had agreed to recommend.

" We think," said she very demurely, " that the
strict course would be to drop the charge of poach-
ing, and Blue-Pool both the Professors and the
prisoner without delay.

" We also think that the proper thing would be
to place on record that the prisoner is the Sunchild
— about which neither Dr. Downie nor I have a
shadow of doubt.

" These measures we hold to be the only legal
ones, but at the same time we do not recommend
them. We think it would offend the public con-
science if it came to be known, as it certainly
would, that the Sunchild was violently killed, on
the very day that had seen us dedicate a temple in
his honour, and perhaps at the very hour when
laudatory speeches were being made about him at
the Mayor's banquet ; we think also that we should
strain a good many points rather than Blue-Pool

the Professors.

238

The Compromise

" Nothing is perfect, and Truth makes her mis-
takes like other people ; when she goes wrong and
reduces herself to such an absurdity as she has here
done, those who love her must save her from her-
self, correct her, and rehabilitate her.

" Our conclusion, therefore, is this : —

"The prisoner must recant on oath his statement
that he is the Sunchild. The interpreter must
be squared, or convinced of his mistake. The
Mayoress, Dr. Downie, I, and the gaoler (with the
interpreter if we can manage him), must depose
on oath that the prisoner is not Higgs. This must
be our contribution to the rehabilitation of Truth.

" The Professors must contribute as follows :
They must swear that the prisoner is not the man
they met with quails in his possession on Thursday
night. They must further swear that they have one
or both of them known him, off and on, for many
years past, as a monomaniac with Suncbildism on
the brain but otherwise harmless. If they will do
this, no proceedings are to be taken against them.

" The Mayor's contribution shall be to reprimand
the prisoner, and order him to repeat his recanta-
tion in the new temple before the Manager and
Head Cashier, and to confirm his statement on
oath by kissing the reliquary containing the newly
found relic.

"The Ranger and the Master of the Gaol must
contribute that the prisoner's measurements, and
the marks found on his body, negative all possi-
bility of his identity with the Sunchild, and that all

239

Erewhon Revisited

the hair on the covered as well as the uncovered
parts of his body was found to be jet black.

" We advise further that the prisoner should have
his nuggets and his kit returned to him, and that
the receipt given by the Professors together with
Professor Hanky's handkerchief be given back to
the Professors.

" Furthermore, seeing that we should all of us
like to have a quiet evening with the prisoner, we
should petition the Mayor and Mayoress to ask him
to meet all here present at dinner to-morrow even-
ing, after his discharge, on the plea that Professors
Hanky and Panky and Dr. Downie may give him
counsel, convince him of his folly, and if possible
free him henceforth from the monomania under
which he now suffers.

" The prisoner shall give his word of honour,
never to return to Erewhon, nor to encourage any
of his countrymen to do so. After the dinner to
which we hope the Mayoress will invite us, the
Ranger, if the night is fair, shall escort the prisoner
as far as the statues, whence he will find his own
way home.

" Those who are in favour of this compromise
hold up their hands."

The Mayor and Yram held up theirs. " Will you
hold up yours, Professor Hanky," said George, " if
I release you ? "

" Yes," said Hanky with a gruff laugh, whereon

George released him and he held up both his

hands.

240

The Compromise

Panky did not hold up his, whereon Hanky said,
" Hold up your hands, Panky, can't you ? We are
really very well out of it."

Panky, hardly lifting his head, sobbed out, " I
think we ought to have our f-f-fo-fo-four pounds
ten returned to us."

" I am afraid, sir," said George, " that the prisoner
must have spent the greater part of this money."

Every one smiled, indeed it was all George could
do to prevent himself from laughing outright. The
Mayor brought out his purse, counted the money,
and handed it good-humouredly to Panky, who
gratefully received it, and said he would divide it
with Hanky. He then held up his hands, "But,"
he added, turning to his brother Professor, " so
long as I live, Hanky, I will never go out anywhere
again with you."

George then turned to Hanky and said, "I am
afraid I must now trouble you and Professor Panky
to depose on oath to the facts which Mrs. Hum-
drum and Dr. Downie propose you should swear
to in open court to-morrow. I knew you would
do so, and have brought an ordinary form, duly
filled up, which declares that the prisoner is not
the poacher you met on Thursday ; and also, that
he has been long known to both of you as a
harmless monomaniac."

As he spoke he brought out depositions to the
above effect which he had just written in his office ;
he shewed the Professors that the form was this
time an innocent one, whereon they made no

24I Q

Erewhon Revisited

demur to signing and swearing in the presence of
the Mayor, who attested.

"The former depositions," said Hanky, "had
better be destroyed at once."

"That," said George, "may hardly be, but so
long as you stick to what you have just sworn to,
they will not be used against you."

Hanky scowled, but knew that he was powerless
and said no more.

The knowledge of what ensued did not reach
me from my father. George and his mother,
seeing how ill he looked, and what a shock the
events of the last few days had given him, resolved
that he should not know of the risk that George was
about to run ; they therefore said nothing to him
about it. What I shall now tell, I learned on the
occasion already referred to when I had the happi-
ness to meet George. I am in some doubt whether
it is more fitly told here, or when I come to the
interview between him and me ; on the whole,
however, I suppose chronological order is least
outraged by dealing with it here.

As soon as the Professors had signed the second
depositions, George said, " I have not yet held up
my hands, but I will hold them up if Mrs. Hum-
drum and Dr. Downie will approve of what I
propose. Their compromise does not go far
enough, for swear as we may, it is sure to get

noised abroad, with the usual exaggerations, that

242

The Compromise

the Sunchild has been here, and that he has been
spirited away either by us, or by the sun his father.
For one person whom we know of as having
identified him, there will be five, of whom we
know nothing, and whom we cannot square.
Reports will reach the King sooner or later, and
I shall be sent for. Meanwhile the Professors
will be living in fear of intrigue on my part, and
I, however unreasonably, shall fear the like on
theirs. This should not be. I mean, therefore, on
the day following my return from escorting the
prisoner, to set out for the capital, see the King,
and make a clean breast of the whole matter. To
this end I must have the nuggets, the prisoner's
kit, his receipt, Professor Hanky's handkerchief,
and, of course, the two depositions just sworn to
by the Professors. I hope and think that the
King will pardon us all round ; but whatever he
may do I shall tell him everything."

Hanky was up in arms at once. " Sheer mad-
ness," he exclaimed. Yram and the Mayor looked
anxious ; Dr. Downie eyed George as though he
were some curious creature, which he heard of
but had never seen, and was rather disposed to
like. Mrs. Humdrum nodded her head approv-
ingly.

"Quite right, George," said she, "tell his Majesty
everything."

Dr. Downie then said, " Your son, Mayoress, is
a very sensible fellow. I will go with him, and
with the Professors — for they had better come too :

243

Erewhon Revisited

each will hear what the other says, and we will
tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth. I am, as you know, a persona grata at Court ;
I will say that I advised your son's action. The
King has liked him ever since he was a boy, and
I am not much afraid about what he will do. In
public, no doubt we had better hush things up, but
in private the King must be told."

Hanky fought hard for some time, but George
told him that it did not matter whether he agreed
or no. " You can come," he said, " or stop away,
just as you please. If you come, you can hear and
speak ; if you do not, you will not hear, but these
two depositions will speak for you. Please your-
self."

"Very well," he said at last, " I suppose we had
better go."

Every one having now understood what his or
her part was to be, Yram said they had better
shake hands all round and take a couple of hours'
rest before getting ready for the banquet. George
said that the Professors did not shake hands with
him very cordially, but the farce was gone through.
When the hand-shaking was over, Dr. Downie and
Mrs. Humdrum left the house, and the Professors
retired grumpily to their own room.

I will say here that no harm happened either to
George or the Professors in consequence of his
having told the King, but will reserve particulars
for my concluding chapter.

244

CHAPTER XXI

YRAM, ON GETTING RID OF HER GUESTS, GOES
TO THE PRISON TO SEE MY FATHER

Yram did not take the advice she had given her

guests, but set about preparing a basket of the best

cold dainties she could find, including a bottle of

choice wine that she knew my father would like ;

thus loaded she went to the gaol, which she entered

by her father's private entrance.

It was now about half-past four, so that much

more must have been said and done after luncheon

at the Mayor's than ever reached my father. The

wonder is that he was able to collect so much.

He, poor man, as soon as George left him, flung

himself on to the bed that was in his cell and lay

there wakeful, but not unquiet, till near the time

when Yram reached the gaol.

The old gaoler came to tell him that she had

come and would be glad to see him ; much as he

dreaded the meeting there was no avoiding it, and

in a few minutes Yram stood before him.

Both were agitated, but Yram betrayed less of

what she felt than my father. He could only bow

his head and cover his face with his hands. Yram

said, " We are old friends ; take your hands from

your face and let me see you. There ! That is well."

245

Erewhon Revisited

She took his right hand between both hers,
looked at him with eyes full of kindness, and said
softly —

" You are not much changed, but you look
haggard, worn, and ill ; I am uneasy about you.
Remember, you are among friends, who will see
that no harm befalls you. There is a look in your
eyes that frightens me."

As she spoke she took the wine out of her basket,
and poured him out a glass, but rather to give him
some little thing to distract his attention, than be-
cause she expected him to drink it — which he could
not do.

She never asked him whether he found her
altered, or turned the conversation ever such a
little on to herself ; all was for him ; to soothe and
comfort him, not in words alone, but in look,
manner, and voice. My father knew that he could
thank her best by controlling himself, and letting
himself be soothed and comforted — at any rate so
far as he could seem to be.

Up to this time they had been standing, but now
Yram, seeing my father calmer, said, " Enough, let
us sit down."

So saying she seated herself at one end of the

small table that was in the cell, and motioned my

father to sit opposite to her. "The light hurts

you ? " she said, for the sun was coming into the

room. " Change places with me, I am a sun

worshipper. No, we can move the table, and we

can then see each other better."

246

Yram Visits My Father

This done, she said, still very softly, " And now
tell me what it is all about. Why have you come
here?"

"Tell me first," said my father, "what befell you
after I had been taken away. Why did you not
send me word when you found what had happened ?
or come after me ? You know I should have
married you at once, unless they bound me in
fetters."

" I know you would ; but you remember Mrs.
Humdrum ? Yes, I see you do. I told her every-
thing ; it was she who saved me. We thought of
you, but she saw that it would not do. As I was to
marry Mr. Strong, the more you were lost sight of
the better, but with George ever with me I have not
been able to forget you. I might have been very
happy with you, but I could not have been happier
than I have been ever since that short dreadful time
was over. George must tell you the rest. I cannot
do so. All is well. I love my husband with my
whole heart and soul, and he loves me with his.
As between him and me, he knows everything ;
George is his son, not yours ; we have settled it so,
though we both know otherwise ; as between you
and me, for this one hour, here, there is no use in
pretending that you are not George's father. I
have said all I need say. Now, tell me what I
asked you — Why are you here ? "

" I fear," said my father, set at rest by the sweet-
ness of Yram's voice and manner — he told me he

had never seen any one to compare with her

247

Erewhon Revisited

except my mother — " I fear, to do as much harm
now as I did before, and with as little wish to do
any harm at all."

He then told her all that the reader knows, and
explained how he had thought he could have gone
about the country as a peasant, and seen how she
herself had fared, without her, or any one, even
suspecting that he was in the country.

"You say your wife is dead, and that she left
you with a son — is he like George ? "

" In mind and disposition, wonderfully ; in ap-
pearance, no ; he is dark and takes after his mother,
and though he is handsome, he is not so good-
looking as George."

" No one," said George's mother, " ever was, or
ever will be, and he is as good as he looks."

" I should not have believed you if you had said
he was not."

"That is right. I am glad you are proud of
him. He irradiates the lives of every one of us."

"And the mere knowledge that he exists will
irradiate the rest of mine."

" Long may it do so. Let us now talk about this
morning — did you mean to declare yourself ? "

" I do not know what I meant ; what I most
cared about was the doing what I thought George
would wish to see his father do."

" You did that ; but he says he told you not to
say who you were."

" So he did, but I knew what he would think right.

He was uppermost in my thoughts all the time."

248

Yram Visits My Father

Yram smiled, and said, "George is a dangerous
person ; you were both of you very foolish ; one
as bad as the other."

" I do not know. I do not know anything. It
is beyond me ; but I am at peace about it, and
hope I shall do the like again to-morrow before
the Mayor."

" I heartily hope you will do nothing of the kind.
George tells me you have promised ^him to be good
and to do as we bid you."

" So I will ; but he will not tell me to say that
I am not what I am."

" Yes, he will, and I will tell you why. If we
permit you to be Higgs the Sunchild, he must
either throw his own father into the Blue Pool —
which he will not do — or run great risk of being
thrown into it himself, for not having Blue-Pooled
a foreigner. I am afraid we shall have to make
you do a good deal that neither you nor we shall
like."

She then told him briefly of what had passed

after luncheon at her house, and what it had been

settled to do, leaving George to tell the details

while escorting him towards the statues on the

following evening. She said that every one would

be so completely in every one else's power that

there was no fear of any one's turning traitor.

But she said nothing about George's intention of

setting out for the capital on Wednesday morning

to tell the whole story to the King.

" Now," she said, when she had told him as
249

Erewhon Revisited

much as was necessary, " be good, and do as you
said you would."

" I will. I will deny myself, not once, nor twice,
but as often as is necessary. I will kiss the reliquary,
and when I meet Hanky and Panky at your table,
I will be sworn brother to them — so long, that is,
as George is out of hearing ; for I cannot lie well
to them when he is listening."

" Oh yes, you can. He will understand all about
it ; he enjoys falsehood as well as we all do, and
has the nicest sense of when to lie and when not to
do so."

" What gift can be more invaluable ? "

My father, knowing that he might not have an-
other chance of seeing Yram alone, now changed
the conversation.

" I have something," he said, "for George, but he
must know nothing about it till after I am gone."

As he spoke, he took from his pockets the nine
small bags of nuggets that remained to him.

" But this," said Yram, " being gold, is a large
sum : can you indeed spare it, and do you really
wish George to have it all ? "

" I shall be very unhappy if he does not, but
he must know nothing about it till I am out of
Erewhon."

My father then explained to her that he was now
very rich, and would have brought ten times as
much, if he had known of George's existence.

" Then," said Yram, musing, " if you are rich, I

accept and thank you heartily on his behalf. I can

250

Yram Visits My Father

see a reason for his not knowing what you are
giving him at present, but it is too long to tell."

The reason was, that if George knew of this gold
before he saw the King, he would be sure to tell
him of it, and the King might claim it, for George
would never explain that it was a gift from father
to son ; whereas if the King had once pardoned
him, he would not be so squeamish as to open up
the whole thing again with a postscript to his con-
fession. But of this she said not a word.

My father then told her of the box of sovereigns
that he had left in his saddle-bags. " They are
coined," he said, " and George will have to melt
them down, but he will find some way of doing
this. They will be worth rather more than these
nine bags of nuggets."

" The difficulty will be to get him to go down

and fetch them, for it is against his oath to go far

beyond the statues. If you could be taken faint

and say you wanted help, he would see you to your

camping ground without a word, but he would be

angry if he found he had been tricked into breaking

his oath in order that money might be given him.

It would never do. Besides, there would not be

time, for he must be back here on Tuesday night.

No ; if he breaks his oath he must do it with his

eyes open — and he will do it later on — or I will go

and fetch the money for him myself. He is in love

with a grand-daughter of Mrs. Humdrum's, and this

sum, together with what you are now leaving with

me, will make him a well-to-do man. I have always

251

Erewhon Revisited

been unhappy about his having any of the Mayor's
money, and his salary was not quite enough for
him to marry on. What can I say to thank you ? "

" Tell me, please, about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-
daughter. You like her as a wife for George ? "

"Absolutely. She is just such another as her
grandmother must have been. She and George
have been sworn lovers ever since he was ten, and
she eight. The only drawback is that her mother,
Mrs. Humdrum's second daughter, married for love,
and there are many children, so that there will be
no money with her ; but what you are leaving will
make everything quite easy, for he will sell the gold
at once. I am so glad about it."

" Can you ask Mrs. Humdrum to bring her
grand-daughter with her to-morrow evening ? "

" I am afraid not, for we shall want to talk freely
at dinner, and she must not know that you are the
Sunchild ; she shall come to my house in the after-
noon and you can see her then. You will be quite
happy about her, but of course she must not know
that you are her father-in-law that is to be."

" One thing more. As George must know no-
thing about the sovereigns, I must tell you how I will
hide them. They are in a silver box, which I will
bind to the bough of some tree close to my camp ;
or if I can find a tree with a hole in it I will drop
the box into the hole. He cannot miss my camp ;
he has only to follow the stream that runs down
from the pass till it gets near a large river, and on a

small triangular patch of flat ground, he will see the

252

Yram Visits My Father

ashes of my camp fire, a few yards away from the
stream on his right hand as he descends. In what-
ever tree I may hide the box, I will strew wood
ashes for some yards in a straight line towards it.
I will then light another fire underneath, and blaze
the tree with a knife that I have left at my camping
ground. He is sure to find it."

Yram again thanked him, and then my father,
to change the conversation, asked whether she
thought that George really would have Blue-Pooled
the Professors.

" There is no knowing," said Yram. " He is the
gentlest creature living till some great provocation
rouses him, and I never saw him hate and despise
any one as he does the Professors. Much of what
he said was merely put on, for he knew the Pro-
fessors must yield. I do not like his ever having
to throw any one into that horrid place, no
more does he, but the Rangership is exactly the
sort of thing to suit him, and the opening was
too good to lose. I must now leave you, and get
ready for the Mayor's banquet. We shall meet
again to-morrow evening. Try and eat what I
have brought you in this basket. I hope you will
like the wine." She put out her hand, which my
father took, and in another moment she was gone,
for she saw a look in his face as though he would
fain have asked her to let him once more press his
lips to hers. Had he done this, without thinking
about it, it is likely enough she would not have been

ill pleased. But who can say ?

253

Erewhon Revisited

For the rest of the evening my father was left
very much to his own not too comfortable reflec-
tions. He spent part of it in posting up the notes
from which, as well as from his own mouth, my
story is in great part taken. The good things that
Yram had left with him, and his pipe, which she
had told him he might smoke quite freely, occupied
another part, and by ten o'clock he went to bed.

254

CHAPTER XXII

MAINLY OCCUPIED WITH A VERACIOUS EXTRACT
FROM A SUNCH'STONIAN JOURNAL

While my father was thus wiling away the hours
in his cell, the whole town was being illuminated in
his honour, and not more than a couple of hundred
yards off, at the Mayor's banquet, he was being
extolled as a superhuman being.

The banquet, which was at the town hall, was
indeed a very brilliant affair, but the little space
that is left me forbids my saying more than that
Hanky made what was considered the speech of
the evening, and betrayed no sign of ill effects from
the bad quarter of an hour which he had spent
so recently. Not a trace was to be seen of any
desire on his part to change his tone as regards
Sunchildism — as, for example, to minimize the im-
portance of the relic, or to remind his hearers that
though the chariot and horses had undoubtedly
come down from the sky and carried away my
father and mother, yet that the earlier stage of
the ascent had been made in a balloon. It almost
seemed, so George told my father, as though he
had resolved that he would speak lies, all lies, and
nothing but lies.

Panky, who was also to have spoken, was ex-
255

Erewhon Revisited

cused by the Mayor on the ground that the great
heat and the excitement of the day's proceedings
had quite robbed him of his voice.

Dr. Downie had a jumping cat before his mental
vision. He spoke quietly and sensibly, dwelling
chiefly on the benefits that had already accrued to
the kingdom through the abolition of the edicts
against machinery, and the great developments
which he foresaw as probable in the near future.
He held up the Sunchild's example, and his ethical
teaching, to the imitation and admiration of his
hearers, but he said nothing about the miraculous
element in my father's career, on which he de-
clared that his friend Professor Hanky had already
so eloquently enlarged as to make further allusion
to it superfluous.

The reader knows what was to happen on the
following morning. The programme concerted at
the Mayor's was strictly adhered to. The following
account, however, which appeared in the Sunch'-
ston bi-weekly newspaper two days after my father
had left, was given me by George a year later, on
the occasion of that interview to which I have
already more than once referred. There were
other accounts in other papers, but the one I am
giving departs the least widely from the facts. It
ran : —

" The close of a disagreeable incident. — Our readers

will remember that on Sunday last during the

solemn inauguration of the temple now dedicated

to the Sunchild, an individual on the front bench

256

The Sunch'stonian Version

of those set apart for the public suddenly inter-
rupted Professor Hanky's eloquent sermon by
declaring himself to be the Sunchild, and saying
that he had come down from the sun to sanctify
by his presence the glorious fane which the piety
of our fellow-citizens and others has erected in his
honour.

" Wild rumours obtained credence throughout
the congregation to the effect that this person was
none other than the Sunchild himself, and in spite
of the fact that his complexion and the colour of
his hair showed this to be impossible, more than
one person was carried away by the excitement of
the moment, and by some few points of resem-
blance between the stranger and the Sunchild.
Under the influence of this belief, they were pre-
paring to give him the honour which they sup-
posed justly due to him, when to the surprise of
every one he was taken into custody by the de-
servedly popular Ranger of the King's preserves,
and in the course of the afternoon it became gener-
ally known that he had been arrested on the charge
of being one of a gang of poachers who have been
known for some time past to be making much
havoc among the quails on the preserves.

"This offence, at all times deplored by those
who desire that his Majesty should enjoy good
sport when he honours us with a visit, is doubly
deplorable during the season when, on the higher
parts of the preserves, the young birds are not yet
able to shift for themselves ; the Ranger, therefore,

257 R

Erewhon Revisited

is indefatigable in his efforts to break up the gang,
and with this end in view, for the last fortnight has
been out night and day on the remoter sections of
the forest — little suspecting that the marauders
would venture so near Sunch'ston as it now seems
they have done. It is to his extreme anxiety to
detect and punish these miscreants that we must
ascribe the arrest of a man, who, however foolish,
and indeed guilty, he is in other respects, is in-
nocent of the particular crime imputed to him.
The circumstances that led to his arrest have
reached us from an exceptionally well-informed
source, and are as follows : —

" Our distinguished guests, Professors Hanky and
Panky, both of them justly celebrated archaeo-
logists, had availed themselves of the opportunity
afforded them by their visit to Sunch'ston, to in-
spect the mysterious statues at the head of the
stream that comes down near this city, and which
have hitherto baffled all those who have tried to
ascertain their date and purpose.

" On their descent after a fatiguing day the Pro-
fessors were benighted, and lost their way. Seeing
the light of a small fire among some trees near
them, they made towards it, hoping to be directed
rightly, and found a man, respectably dressed,
sitting by the fire with several brace of quails beside
him, some of them plucked. Believing that in
spite of his appearance, which would not have led
them to suppose that he was a poacher, he must

unquestionably be one, they hurriedly enquired

258

The Sunch'stonian Version

their way, intending to leave him as soon as they
had got their answer ; he, however, attacked them,
or made as though he would do so, and said he
would show them a way which they should be in
no fear of losing, whereon Professor Hanky, with
a well-directed blow, felled him to the ground.
The two Professors, fearing that other poachers
might come to his assistance, made off as nearly
as they could guess in the direction of Sunch'ston.
When they had gone a mile or two onward at
haphazard, they sat down under a large tree, and
waited till day began to break ; they then resumed
their journey, and before long struck a path which
led them to a spot from which they could see the
towers of the new temple.

" Fatigued though they were, they waited before
taking the rest of which they stood much in need,
till they had reported their adventure at the
Ranger's office. The Ranger was still out on the
preserves, but immediately on his return on Satur-
day morning he read the description of the
poacher's appearance and dress, about which last,
however, the only remarkable feature was that it
was better than a poacher might be expected to
possess, and gave an air of respectability to the
wearer that might easily disarm suspicion.

"The Ranger made enquiries at all the inns in

Sunch'ston, and at length succeeded in hearing of

a stranger who appeared to correspond with the

poacher whom the Professors had seen ; but the

man had already left, and though the Ranger did

259

Erewhon Revisited

his best to trace him he did not succeed. On
Sunday morning, however, he observed the pris-
oner, and found that he answered the description
given by the Professors ; he therefore arrested
him quietly in the temple, but told him that he
should not take him to prison till the service was
over. The man said he would come quietly inas-
much as he should easily be able to prove his
innocence. In the meantime, however, he pro-
fessed the utmost anxiety to hear Professor Hanky's
sermon, which he said he believed would concern
him nearly. The Ranger paid no attention to this,
and was as much astounded as the rest of the
congregation were, when immediately after one
of Professor Hanky's most eloquent passages, the
man started up and declared himself to be the
Sunchild. On this the Ranger took him away at
once, and for the man's own protection hurried
him off to prison.

" Professor Hanky was so much shocked at such
outrageous conduct, that for the moment he failed
to recognise the offender ; after a few seconds,
however, he grasped the situation, and knew him
to be one who on previous occasions, near Bridge-
ford, had done what he was now doing. It seems
that he is notorious in the neighbourhood of
Bridgeford, as a monomaniac who is so deeply
impressed with the beauty of the Sunchild's charac-
ter— and we presume also of his own — as to believe
that he is himself the Sunchild.

" Recovering almost instantly from the shock the

260

The Sunch'stonian Version

interruption had given him, the learned Professor
calmed his hearers by acquainting them with the
facts of the case, and continued his sermon to the
delight of all who heard it. We should say, how-
ever, that the gentleman who twenty years ago
instructed the Sunchild in the Erewhonian lan-
guage, was so struck with some few points of re-
semblance between the stranger and his former
pupil, that he acclaimed him, and was removed
forcibly by the vergers.

"On Monday morning the prisoner was brought
up before the Mayor. We cannot say whether it
was the sobering effect of prison walls, or whether
he had been drinking before he entered the temple,
and had now had time enough to recover himself
— at any rate for some reason or other he was
abjectly penitent when his case came on for hear-
ing. The charge of poaching was first gone into,
but was immediately disposed of by the evidence
of the two Professors, who stated that the prisoner
bore no resemblance to the poacher they had seen,
save that he was about the same height and age,
and was respectably dressed.

"The charge of disturbing the congregation by

declaring himself the Sunchild was then proceeded

with, and unnecessary as it may appear to be, it

was thought advisable to prevent all possibility of

the man's assertion being accepted by the ignorant

as true, at some later date, when those who could

prove its falsehood were no longer living. The

prisoner, therefore, was removed to his cell, and

261

Erewhon Revisited

there measured by the Master of the Gaol, and the
Ranger in the presence of the Mayor, who attested
the accuracy of the measurements. Not one single
one of them corresponded with those recorded of
the Sunchild himself, and a few marks such as
moles, and permanent scars on the Sunchild's body
were not found on the prisoner's. Furthermore
the prisoner was shaggy-breasted, with much coarse
jet black hair on the fore-arms and from the knees
downwards, whereas the Sunchild had little hair
save on his head, and what little there was, was
fine, and very light in colour.

" Confronted with these discrepancies, the gentle-
man who had taught the Sunchild our language
was convinced of his mistake, though he still main-
tained that there was some superficial likeness
between his former pupil and the prisoner. Here
he was confirmed by the Master of the Gaol, the
Mayoress, Mrs. Humdrum, and Professors Hanky
and Panky, who all of them could see what the
interpreter meant, but denied that the prisoner
could be mistaken for the Sunchild for more than
a few seconds. No doubt the prisoner's unhappy
delusion has been fostered, if not entirely caused,
by his having been repeatedly told that he was like
the Sunchild. The celebrated Dr. Downie, who
well remembers the Sunchild, was also examined,
and gave his evidence with so much convincing
detail as to make it unnecessary to call further
witnesses.

" It having been thus once for all officially and
262

The Sunch'stonian Version

authoritatively placed on record that the prisoner
was not the Sunchild, Professors Hanky and Panky
then identified him as a well known monomaniac
on the subject of Sunchildism, who in other re-
spects was harmless. We withhold his name and
place of abode, out of consideration for the well
known and highly respectable family to which he
belongs. The prisoner admitted with much con-
trition that he had made a disturbance in the
temple, but pleaded that he had been carried away
by the eloquence of Professor Hanky ; he promised
to avoid all like offence in future, and threw him-
self on the mercy of the court.

"The Mayor, unwilling that Sunday's memorable
ceremony should be the occasion of a serious
punishment to any of those who took part in it,
reprimanded the prisoner in a few severe but not
unkindly words, inflicted a fine of forty shillings,
and ordered that the prisoner should be taken
directly to the temple, where he should confess his
folly to the Manager and Head Cashier, and con-
firm his words by kissing the reliquary in which
the newly found relic has been placed. The
prisoner being unable to pay the fine, some of
the ladies and gentlemen in court kindly raised
the amount amongst them, in pity for the poor
creature's obvious contrition, rather than see him
sent to prison for a month in default of payment.

"The prisoner was then conducted to the temple,

followed by a considerable number of people.

Strange to say, in spite of the overwhelming evi-

263

Erewhon Revisited

dence that they had just heard, some few among
the followers, whose love of the marvellous over-
powered their reason, still maintained that the
prisoner was the Sunchild. Nothing could be more
decorous than the prisoner's behaviour when, after
hearing the recantation that was read out to him
by the Manager, he signed the document with his
name and address, which we again withhold, and
kissed the reliquary in confirmation of his words.

"The Mayor then declared the prisoner to be at
liberty. When he had done so he said, ' I strongly
urge you to place yourself under my protection for
the present, that you may be freed from the im-
pertinent folly and curiosity of some whose infatua-
tion might lead you from that better mind to which
I believe you are now happily restored. I wish you
to remain for some few hours secluded in the
privacy of my own study, where Dr. Downie and
the two excellent Professors will administer that
ghostly counsel to you, which will be likely to
protect you from any return of your unhappy
delusion.'

" The man humbly bowed assent, and was taken
by the Mayor's younger sons to the Mayor's own
house, where he was duly cared for. About mid-
night, when all was quiet, he was conducted to
the outskirts of the town towards Clearwater, and
furnished with enough money to provide for his
more pressing necessities till he could reach some
relatives who reside three or four days' walk down

on the road towards the capital. He desired the

264

The Sunch'stonian Version

man who accompanied him to repeat to the Mayor
his heartfelt thanks for the forbearance and gene-
rosity with which he had been treated. The
remembrance of this, he said, should be ever
present with him, and he was confident would
protect him if his unhappy monomania shewed
any signs of returning.

" Let us now, however, remind our readers that
the poacher who threatened Professors Hanky and
Panky's life on Thursday evening last is still at
large. He is evidently a man of desperate char-
acter, and it is to be hoped that our fellow-citizens
will give immediate information at the Ranger's
office if they see any stranger in the neighbourhood
of the preserves whom they may have reasonable
grounds for suspecting.

" P.S. — As we are on the point of going to press

we learn that a dangerous lunatic, who has been

for some years confined in the Clearwater asylum,

succeeded in escaping on the night of Wednesday

last, and it is surmised with much probability, that

this was the man who threatened the two Professors

on Thursday evening. His being alone, his having

dared to light a fire, probably to cook quails which

he had been driven to kill from stress of hunger,

the respectability of his dress, and the fury with

which he would have attacked the two Professors

single-handed, but for Professor Hanky's presence

of mind in giving him a knock-down blow, all

point in the direction of thinking that he was no

true poacher, but, what is even more dangerous — a

265

Erewhon Revisited

madman at large. We have not received any par-
ticulars as to the man's appearance, nor the clothes
he was wearing, but we have little doubt that these
will confirm the surmise to which we now give
publicity. If it is correct it becomes doubly incum-
bent on all our fellow-citizens to be both on the
watch, and on their guard.

" We may add that the man was fully believed to
have taken the direction towards the capital ; hence
no attempts were made to look for him in the
neighbourhood of Sunch'ston, until news of the
threatened attack on the Professors led the keeper
of the asylum to feel confident that he had hitherto
been on a wrong scent."

266

CHAPTER XXIII

MY FATHER IS ESCORTED TO THE MAYOR'S HOUSE,
AND IS INTRODUCED TO A FUTURE DAUGHTER-
IN-LAW.

My father said he was followed to the Mayor's
house by a good many people, whom the Mayor's
sons in vain tried to get rid of. One or two of
these still persisted in saying he was the Sunchild
— whereon another said, " But his hair is black."

" Yes," was the answer, " but a man can dye his
hair, can he not ? look at his blue eyes and his eye-
lashes ? "

My father was doubting whether he ought not to

again deny his identity out of loyalty to the Mayor

and Yram, when George's next brother said, " Pay

no attention to them, but step out as fast as you

can." This settled the matter, and in a few minutes

they were at the Mayor's, where the young men

took him into the study ; the elder said with a

smile, " We should like to stay and talk to you, but

my mother said we were not to do so." Whereon

they left him much to his regret, but he gathered

rightly that they had not been officially told who

he was, and were to be left to think what they liked,

at any rate for the present.

In a few minutes the Mayor entered, and going
267

Erewhon Revisited

straight up to my father shook him cordially by the
hand.

" I have brought you this morning's paper," said
he. " You will find a full report of Professor
Hanky's sermon, and of the speeches at last night's
banquet. You see they pass over your little inter-
ruption with hardly a word, but I dare say they will
have made up their minds about it all by Thurs-
day's issue."

He laughed as he produced the paper — which my
father brought home with him, and without which
I should not have been able to report Hanky's
sermon as fully as I have done. But my father
could not let things pass over thus lightly.

" I thank you," he said, " but I have much more
to thank you for, and know not how to do it."

" Can you not trust me to take everything as
said ? "

" Yes, but I cannot trust myself not to be haunted
if I do not say — or at any rate try to say — some
part of what I ought to say."

" Very well ; then I will say something myself. I

have a small joke, the only one I ever made, which

I inflict periodically upon my wife. You, and I

suppose George, are the only two other people in

the world to whom it can ever be told ; let me see,

then, if I cannot break the ice with it. It is this.

Some men have twin sons ; George in this topsy

turvey world of ours has twin fathers — you by luck,

and me by cunning. I see you smile ; give me your

hand."

268

At the Mayor's House

My father took the Mayor's hand between both
his own. " Had I been in your place," he said,
" I should be glad to hope that I might have done
as you did."

"And I," said the Mayor, more readily than
might have been expected of him, " fear that if I
had been in yours — I should have made it the
proper thing for you to do. There ! The ice is
well broken, and now for business. You will lunch
with us, and dine in the evening. I have given it
out that you are of good family, so there is nothing
odd in this. At lunch you will not be the Sun-
child, for my younger children will be there ; at
dinner all present will know who you are, so we
shall be free as soon as the servants are out of
the room.

" I am sorry, but I must send you away with
George as soon as the streets are empty — say at
midnight — for the excitement is too great to allow
of your staying longer. We must keep your rug
and the things you cook with, but my wife will
find you what will serve your turn. There is no
moon, so you and George will camp out as soon
as you get well on to the preserves ; the weather
is hot, and you will neither of you take any harm.
To-morrow by mid-day you will be at the statues,
where George must bid you good-bye, for he must
be at Sunch'ston to-morrow night. You will doubt-
less get safely home ; I wish with all my heart that
I could hear of your having done so, but this, I fear,

may not be."

269

Erewhon Revisited

" So be it," replied my father, " but there is
something I should yet say. The Mayoress has no
doubt told you of some gold, coined and uncoined,
that I am leaving for George. She will also have
told you that I am rich ; this being so, I should
have brought him much more, if I had known that
there was any such person. You have other chil-
dren ; if you leave him anything, you will be taking
it away from your own flesh and blood ; if you
leave him nothing, it will be a slur upon him. I
must therefore send you enough gold, to provide
for George as your other children will be provided
for ; you can settle it upon him at once, and make
it clear that the settlement is instead of provision
for him by will. The difficulty is in the getting the
gold into Erewhon, and until it is actually here,
he must know nothing about it."

I have no space for the discussion that followed.
In the end it was settled that George was to have
.£2000 in gold, which the Mayor declared to be
too much, and my father too little. Both, how-
ever, were agreed that Erewhon would before long
be compelled to enter into relations with foreign
countries, in which case the value of gold would
decline so much as to make ^2000 worth little
more than it would be in England. The Mayor
proposed to buy land with it, which he would hand
over to George as a gift from himself, and this my
father at once acceded to. All sorts of questions
such as will occur to the reader were raised and

settled, but I must beg him to be content with

270

At the Mayor's House

knowing that everything was arranged with the
good sense that two such men were sure to bring
to bear upon it.

The getting the gold into Erewhon was to be
managed thus. George was to know nothing, but
a promise was to be got from him that at noon on
the following New Year's day, or whatever day
might be agreed upon, he would be at the statues,
where either my father or myself would meet him,
spend a couple of hours with him, and then return.
Whoever met George was to bring the gold as
though it were for the Mayor, and George could
be trusted to be human enough to bring it down,
when he saw that it would be left where it was if
he did not do so.

"He will kick a good deal," said the Mayor, "at
first, but he will come round in the end."

Luncheon was now announced. My father was
feeling faint and ill ; more than once during the
forenoon he had had a return of the strange giddiness
and momentary loss of memory which had already
twice attacked him, but he had recovered in each
case so quickly that no one had seen he was unwell.
He, poor man, did not yet know what serious brain
exhaustion these attacks betokened, and rinding
himself in his usual health as soon as they passed
away, set them down as simply effects of fatigue
and undue excitement.

George did not lunch with the others. Yram

explained that he had to draw up a report which

would occupy him till dinner time. Her three

271

Erewhon Revisited

other sons, and her three lovely daughters, were
there. My father was delighted with all of them,
for they made friends with him at once. He had
feared that he would have been disgraced in their
eyes, by his having just come from prison, but
whatever they may have thought, no trace of any-
thing but a little engaging timidity on the girls' part
was to be seen. The two elder boys — or rather
young men, for they seemed fully grown, though,
like George, not yet bearded — treated him as already
an old acquaintance, while the youngest, a lad of
fourteen, walked straight up to him, put out his
hand, and said, " How do you do, sir ? " with a
pretty blush that went straight to my father's
heart.

"These boys," he said to Yram aside, "who
have nothing to blush for — see how the blood
mantles into their young cheeks, while I, who
should blush at being spoken to by them, cannot
do so."

" Do not talk nonsense," said Yram, with mock
severity.

But it was no nonsense to my poor father. He

was awed at the goodness and beauty with which

he found himself surrounded. His thoughts were

too full of what had been, what was, and what was

yet to be, to let him devote himself to these young

people as he would dearly have liked to do. He

could only look at them, wonder at them, fall in

love with them, and thank heaven that George had

been brought up in such a household.

272

At the Mayor's House

When luncheon was over, Yram said, " I will
now send you to a room where you can lie down
and go to sleep for a few hours. You will be out
late to-night, and had better rest while you can.
Do you remember the drink you taught us to
make of corn parched and ground ? You used to
say you liked it. A cup shall be brought to your
room at about five, for you must try and sleep
till then. If you notice a little box on the dressing-
table of your room, you will open it or no as you
like. About half-past five there will be a visitor,
whose name you can guess, but I shall not let
her stay long with you. Here comes the servant
to take you to your room." On this she smiled,
and turned somewhat hurriedly away.

My father on reaching his room went to the
dressing-table, where he saw a small unpretending
box, which he immediately opened. On the top
was a paper with the words, " Look — say nothing
— forget." Beneath this was some cotton wool,
and then — the two buttons and the lock of his
own hair, that he had given Yram when he said
good-bye to her.

The ghost of the lock that Yram had then given
him, rose from the dead, and smote him as with a
whip across the face. On what dust-heap had it
not been thrown how many long years ago ?
Then she had never forgotten him ? to have been
remembered all these years by such a woman as
that, and never to have heeded it — never to have
found out what she was though he had seen her

273 s

Erewhon Revisited

day after day for months. Ah ! but she was then
still budding. That was no excuse. If a loveable
woman — aye, or any woman — has loved a man, even
though he cannot marry her, or even wish to do so,
at any rate let him not forget her — and he had
forgotten Yram as completely until the last few
days, as though he had never seen her. He took
her little missive, and under " Look," he wrote, " I
have ; " under " Say nothing," " I will ; " under
"forget," "never." "And I never shall," he said
to himself, as he replaced the box upon the table.
He then lay down to rest upon the bed, but he
could get no sleep.

When the servant brought him his imitation
coffee — an imitation so successful that Yram made
him a packet of it to replace the tea that he must
leave behind him — he rose and presently came
downstairs into the drawing-room, where he found
Yram and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, of
whom I will say nothing, for I have never seen
her, and know nothing about her, except that my
father found her a sweet-looking girl, of graceful
figure and very attractive expression. He was
quite happy about her, but she was too young
and shy to make it possible for him to do more
than admire her appearance, and take Yram's word
for it that she was as good as she looked.

274

CHAPTER XXIV

AFTER DINNER, DR. DOWNIE AND THE PROFESSORS
WOULD BE GLAD TO KNOW WHAT IS TO BE
DONE ABOUT SUNCHILDISM

It was about six when George's fiancee left the
house, and as soon as she had done so, Yram
began to see about the rug and the best substi-
tutes she could find for the billy and pannikin.
She had a basket packed with all that my father and
George would want to eat and drink while on the
preserves, and enough of everything, except meat,
to keep my father going till he could reach the
shepherd's hut of which I have already spoken.
Meat would not keep, and my father could get
plenty of flappers — i.e. ducks that cannot yet fly
— when he was on the river-bed down below.

The above preparations had not been made very
long, before Mrs. Humdrum arrived, followed pre-
sently by Dr. Downie and in due course by the
Professors, who were still staying in the house.
My father remembered Mrs. Humdrum's good
honest face, but could not bring Dr. Downie to
his recollection till the Doctor told him when and
where they had met, and then he could only very
uncertainly recall him, though he vowed that he

could now do so perfectly well.

275

Erewhon Revisited

"At any rate," said Hanky, advancing towards
him with his best Bridgeford manner, " you will
not have forgotten meeting my brother Professor
and myself."

" It has been rather a forgetting sort of a morn-
ing," said my father demurely, " but I can remem-
ber that much, and am delighted to renew my
acquaintance with both of you."

As he spoke he shook hands with both Pro-
fessors.

George was a little late, but when he came, dinner
was announced. My father sat on Yram's right-
hand, Dr. Downie on her left. George was next
my father, with Mrs. Humdrum opposite to him.
The Professors sat one on either side of the Mayor.
During dinner the conversation turned almost
entirely on my father's flight, his narrow escape
from drowning, and his adventures on his return
to England ; about these last my father was very
reticent, for he said nothing about his book, and
antedated his accession of wealth by some fifteen
years, but as he walked up towards the statues
with George he told him everything.

My father repeatedly tried to turn the conversa-
tion from himself, but Mrs. Humdrum and Yram
wanted to know about Nna Haras, as they per-
sisted in calling my mother — how she endured her
terrible experiences in the balloon, when she and
my father were married, all about my unworthy
self, and England generally. No matter how often

he began to ask questions about the Nosnibors

276

What about Sunchildism ?

and other old acquaintances, both the ladies soon
went back to his own adventures. He succeeded,
however, in learning that Mr. Nosnibor was dead,
and Zulora, an old maid of the most unattractive
kind, who had persistently refused to accept Sun-
childism, while Mrs. Nosnibor was the recipient of
honours hardly inferior to those conferred by the
people at large on my father and mother, with
whom, indeed, she believed herself to have frequent
interviews by way of visionary revelations. So
intolerable were these revelations to Zulora, that
a separate establishment had been provided for
her. George said to my father quietly — " Do you
know I begin to think that Zulora must be rather a
nice person."

" Perhaps," said my father grimly, " but my wife
and I did not find it out."

When the ladies left the room, Dr. Downie took
Yram's seat, and Hanky Dr. Downie's ; the Mayor
took Mrs. Humdrum's, leaving my father, George,
and Panky, in their old places. Almost imme-
diately, Dr. Downie said, " And now, Mr. Higgs,
tell us, as a man of the world, what we are to do
about Sunchildism ? "

My father smiled at this. " You know, my dear

sir, as well as I do, that the proper thing would be

to put me back in prison, and keep me there till you

can send me down to the capital. You should eat

your oaths of this morning, as I would eat mine ;

tell every one here who I am ; let them see that my

hair has been dyed ; get all who knew me when I

277

Erewhon Revisited

was here before to come and see me ; appoint an
unimpeachable committee to examine the record
of my marks and measurements, and compare it
with those of my own body. You should let me
be seen in every town at which I lodged on my
way down, and tell people that you had made a
mistake. When you get to the capital, hand me
over to the King's tender mercies and say that our
oaths were only taken this morning to prevent a
ferment in the town. I will play my part very
willingly. The King can only kill me, and I should
die like a gentleman."

" They will not do it," said George quietly to my
father, " and I am glad of it."

He was right. "This," said Dr. Dovvnie, "is a
counsel of perfection. Things have gone too far,
and we are flesh and blood. What would those
who in your country come nearest to us Musical
Bank Managers do, if they found they had made
such a mistake as we have, and dared not own it ? "

" Do not ask me," said my father ; " the story is
too long, and too terrible."

" At any rate, then, tell us what you would have
us do that is within our reach."

" I have done you harm enough, and if I preach,
as likely as not I shall do more."

Seeing, however, that Dr. Downie was anxious to
hear what he thought, my father said —

" Then I must tell you. Our religion sets before

us an ideal which we all cordially accept, but it also

tells us of marvels like your chariot and horses,

278

What about Sunchildism ?

which we most of us reject. Our best teachers
insist on the ideal, and keep the marvels in the
background. If they could say outright that our
age has outgrown them, they would say so, but this
they may not do ; nevertheless they contrive to let
their opinions be sufficiently well known, and their
hearers are content with this.

" We have others who take a very different course,
but of these I will not speak. Roughly, then, if you
cannot abolish me altogether, make me a peg on
which to hang all your own best ethical and
spiritual conceptions. If you will do this, and
wriggle out of that wretched relic, with that not less
wretched picture — if you will make me out to be
much better and abler than I was, or ever shall be,
Sunchildism may serve your turn for many a long
year to come. Otherwise it will tumble about your
heads before you think it will.

" Am I to go on or stop ? "

" Go on," said George softly. That was enough
for my father, so on he went.

" You are already doing part of what I wish. I

was delighted with the two passages I heard on

Sunday, from what you call the Sunchild's Sayings.

I never said a word of either passage ; I wish I had ;

I wish I could say anything half so good. And I

have read a pamphlet by President Gurgoyle, which

I liked extremely ; but I never said what he says I

did. Again, I wish I had. Keep to this sort of

thing, and I will be as good a Sunchildist as any

of you. But you must bribe some thief to steal

279

Erewhon Revisited

that relic, and break it up to mend the roads with ;
and — for I believe that here as elsewhere fires some-
times get lighted through the carelessness of a work-
man— set the most careless workman you can find
to do a plumbing job near that picture."

Hanky looked black at this, and George trod
lightly on my father's toe, but he told me that my
father's face was innocence itself.

"These are hard sayings," said Dr. Downie.

" I know they are," replied my father, " and I do
not like saying them, but there is no royal road to
unlearning, and you have much to unlearn. Still,
you Musical Bank people bear witness to the fact
that beyond the kingdoms of this world there is
another, within which the writs of this world's
kingdoms do not run. This is the great service
which our church does for us in England, and
hence many of us uphold it, though we have no
sympathy with the party now dominant within it.
' Better,' we think, ' a corrupt church than none at
all.' Moreover, those who in my country would
step into the church's shoes are as corrupt as the
church, and more exacting. They are also more
dangerous, for the masses distrust the church, and
are on their guard against aggression, whereas they
do not suspect the doctrinaires and faddists, who,
if they could, would interfere in every concern of
our lives.

" Let me return to yourselves. You Musical
Bank Managers are very much such a body of

men as your country needs — but when I was here

280

What about Sunchildism ?

before you had no figurehead ; I have unwittingly
supplied you with one, and it is perhaps because
you saw this, that you good people of Bridgeford
took up with me. Sunchildism is still young and
plastic ; if you will let the cock-and-bull stories
about me tacitly drop, and invent no new ones,
beyond saying what a delightful person I was, I
really cannot see why I should not do for you as
well as any one else.

"There. What I have said is nine-tenths of it
rotten and wrong, but it is the most practicable
rotten and wrong that I can suggest, seeing into
what a rotten and wrong state of things you have
drifted. And now, Mr. Mayor, do you not think
we may join the Mayoress and Mrs. Humdrum ? "

"As you please, Mr. Higgs," answered the
Mayor.

"Then let us go, for I have said too much
already, and your son George tells me that we
must be starting shortly."

As they were leaving the room Panky sidled up
to my father and said, "There is a point, Mr. Higgs,
which you can settle for me, though I feel pretty
certain how you will settle it. I think that a cor-
ruption has crept into the text of the very beauti-
ful "

At this moment, as my father, who saw what

was coming, was wondering what in the world he

could say, George came up to him and said, " Mr.

Higgs, my mother wishes me to take you down

into the store-room, to make sure that she has put

281

Erewhon Revisited

everything for you as you would like it." On this
my father said he would return directly and answer
what he knew would be Panky's question.

When Yram had shewn what she had prepared
— all of it, of course, faultless — she said, " And now,
Mr. Higgs, about our leave-taking. Of course we
shall both of us feel much. I shall ; I know you
will ; George will have a few more hours with you
than the rest of us, but his time to say good-bye
will come, and it will be painful to both of you.
I am glad you came — I am glad you have seen
George, and George you, and that you took to one
another. I am glad my husband has seen you ; he
has spoken to me about you very warmly, for he
has taken to you much as George did. I am very,
very glad to have seen you myself, and to have
learned what became of you — and of your wife. I
know you wish well to all of us ; be sure that we
all of us wish most heartily well to you and yours.
I sent for you and George, because I could not say
all this unless we were alone ; it is all I can do,"
she said, with a smile, " to say it now."

Indeed it was, for the tears were in her eyes all
the time, as they were also in my father's.

" Let this," continued Yram, " be our leave-taking
— for we must have nothing like a scene upstairs.
Just shake hands with us all, say the usual conven-
tional things, and make it as short as you can ; but
I could not bear to send you away without a few
warmer words than I could have said when others

were in the room."

282

What about Sunchildism ?

" May heaven bless you and yours," said my
father, " for ever and ever."

"That will do," said George gently. " Now, both
of you shake hands, and come upstairs with me."

When all three of them had got calm, for George
had been moved almost as much as his father and
mother, they went upstairs, and Panky came for
his answer. " You are very possibly right," said
my father — "the version you hold to be corrupt
is the one in common use amongst ourselves, but
it is only a translation, and very possibly only a
translation of a translation, so that it may perhaps
have been corrupted before it reached us."

"That," said Panky, "will explain everything,"
and he went contentedly away.

My father talked a little aside with Mrs. Humdrum
about her grand-daughter and George, for Yram
had told him that she knew all about the attach-
ment, and then George, who saw that my father
found the greatest difficulty in maintaining an out-
ward calm, said, " Mr. Higgs, the streets are empty;
we had better go."

My father did as Yram had told him ; shook

hands with every one, said all that was usual and

proper as briefly as he could, and followed George

out of the room. The Mayor saw them to the

door, and saved my father from embarrassment by

saying, " Mr. Higgs, you and I understand one

another too well to make it necessary for us to say

283

Erewhon Revisited

so. Good-bye to you, and may no ill befall you ere
you get home."

My father grasped his hand in both his own.
" Again," he said, " I can say no more than that I
thank you from the bottom of my heart."

As he spoke he bowed his head, and went out
with George into the night.

284

CHAPTER XXV

GEORGE ESCORTS MY FATHER TO THE STATUES ;
THE TWO THEN PART

The streets were quite deserted as George had said
they would be, and very dark, save for an occa-
sional oil lamp.

"As soon as we can get within the preserves,"
said George, "we had better wTait till morning. I
have a rug for myself as well as for you."

" I saw you had two," answered my father ; " you
must let me carry them both ; the provisions are
much the heavier load.

George fought as hard as a dog would do, till my
father said that they must not quarrel during the
very short time they had to be together. On this
George gave up one rug meekly enough, and my
father yielded about the basket, and the other rug.

It was about half-past eleven when they started,
and it was after one before they reached the pre-
serves. For the first mile from the town they were
not much hindered by the darkness, and my father
told George about his book and many another
matter ; he also promised George to say nothing
about this second visit. Then the road became
more rough, and when it dwindled away to be a

mere lane — becoming presently only a foot track —

285

Erewhon Revisited

they had to mind their footsteps, and got on but
slowly. The night was starlit, and warm, consider-
ing that they were more than three thousand feet
above the sea, but it was very dark, so that my
father was well enough pleased when George
showed him the white stones that marked the
boundary, and said they had better soon make
themselves as comfortable as they could till
morning.

"We can stay here," he said, "till half-past three,
there will be a little daylight then ; we will rest
half an hour for breakfast at about five, and by
noon we shall be at the statues, where we will
dine."

This being settled, George rolled himself up in
his rug, and in a few minutes went comfortably
off to sleep. Not so my poor father. He wound
up his watch, wrapped his rug round him, and
lay down ; but he could get no sleep. After such
a day, and such an evening, how could any one
have slept ?

About three the first signs of dawn began to
show, and half an hour later my father could see
the sleeping face of his son — whom it went to his
heart to wake. Nevertheless he woke him, and in
a few minutes the two were on their way — George
as fresh as a lark — my poor father intent on no-
thing so much as on hiding from George how ill
and unsound in body and mind he was feeling.

They walked on, saying but little, till at five by

my father's watch George proposed a halt for

286

Back to the Statues

breakfast. The spot he chose was a grassy
oasis among the trees, carpeted with subalpine
flowers, now in their fullest beauty, and close to
a small stream that here came down from a side
valley. The freshness of the morning air, the
extreme beauty of the place, the lovely birds that
flitted from tree to tree, the exquisite shapes and
colours of the flowers, still dew-bespangled, and
above all, the tenderness with which George treated
him, soothed my father, and when he and George
had lit a fire and made some hot corn-coffee —
with a view to which Yram had put up a bottle
of milk — he felt so much restored as to look for-
ward to the rest of his journey without alarm.
Moreover he had nothing to carry, for George
had left his own rug at the place where they had
slept, knowing that he should find it on his return ;
he had therefore insisted on carrying my father's.
My father fought as long as he could, but he had
to give in.

" Now tell me," said George, glad to change the
subject, " what will those three men do about what
you said to them last night ? Will they pay any
attention to it ? "

My father laughed. "My dear George, what a
question — I do not know them well enough."

"Oh yes, you do. At any rate say what you
think most likely."

" Very well. I think Dr. Downie will do much

as I said. He will not throw the whole thing

over, through fear of schism, loyalty to a party

287

Erewhon Revisited

from which he cannot well detach himself, and
because he does not think that the public is quite
tired enough of its toy. He will neither preach
nor write against it, but he will live lukewarmly
against it, and this is what the Hankys hate.
They can stand either hot or cold, but they are
afraid of lukewarm. In England Dr. Downie would
be a Broad Churchman."

" Do you think we shall ever get rid of Sun-
childism altogether ? "

" If they stick to the cock-and-bull stories they
are telling now, and rub them in, as Hanky did
on Sunday, it may go, and go soon. It has taken
root too quickly and easily ; and its top is too
heavy for its roots ; still there are so many chances
in its favour that it may last a long time."

" And how about Hanky ? "

" He will brazen it out, relic, chariot, and all :
and he will welcome more relics and more cock-
and-bull stories ; his single eye will be upon
his own aggrandisement and that of his order.
Plausible, unscrupulous, heartless scoundrel that
he is, he will play for the queen and the women
of the court, as Dr. Downie will play for the king
and the men. He and his party will sleep neither
night nor day, but they will have one redeeming
feature — whoever they may deceive, they will not
deceive themselves. They believe every one else
to be as bad as they are, and see no reason why
they should not push their own wares in the way

of business. Hanky is everything that we in Eng-

288

Back to the Statues

land rightly or wrongly believe a typical Jesuit
to be."

"And Panky— what about him ?"

" Panky must persuade himself of his own lies,
before he is quite comfortable about telling them to
other people. Hanky keeps Hanky well out of it ;
Panky must have a base of operations in Panky.
Hanky will lead him by the nose, bit by bit, for his
is the master spirit. In England Panky would be
what we call an extreme ritualist."

" Then the real battle will be between Hanky and
Dr. Downie. Which will carry the day ? "

" For the present, probably Hanky. He is the
more vigilant, and energetic ; in this case Sun-
childism will have to go, and I am afraid your
whole Musical Bank system will be swept away
along with it."

" And why not ? "

" Because, my dear boy, though false in the
letter, if good counsels prevail, it may be made true
enough in spirit. If it were to go, its place would
be soon filled by men who would be as false in
letter as the others were, and much more false in
spirit. You want a heart to check your head, and
a head to check your heart. As in our English
body politic there are two parties opposed to one
another, neither of which can thrive if the other is
unduly weakened, so in our spiritual and intellec-
tual world two parties more or less antagonistic are
equally necessary. Those who are at the head of

science provide us with the one party ; those whom

289 j

Erewhon Revisited

we call our churchmen are the other. Both are
corrupt, but we can spare neither, for each checks
as far as it can the corruptions of the other."

" Then you would have us uphold Sunchildism,
knowing it to be untrue ? "

" Do what you will, you will not get perfect truth.
And if you can follow the lead which I believe Dr.
Downie will give you, that is to say, get rid of cock-
and-bull stories, idealise my unworthy self, and, as
I said last night, make me a peg on which to hang
your own best thoughts — Sunchildism will be as
near truth as anything you are likely to get. But
if Hankyism triumphs, come what may you must
get rid of it, for he and his school will tamper with
the one sure and everlasting word of God revealed
to us by human experience. He who plays fast
and loose with this is as one who would forge
God's signature to a cheque drawn on God's own
bank."

" Are we to foster the belief that it was indeed
the Sunchild who interrupted Hanky's sermon ?"

" Yes, where you safely can, but not otherwise ;
and commit the facts to writing as soon as you can
find time. Do nothing to jeopardise your own
safety ; you can do more by perfunctory acquies-
cence than by open dissent. And tell those friends
whom you can trust, what these my parting words
to you have been. But above all I charge you
solemnly, do nothing to jeopardise your own safety ;
you cannot play into Hanky's hands more certainly

than by risking this. Think how he and Panky

290

Back to the Statues

would rejoice, and how Dr. Downie would grieve.
Be wise and wary ; bide your time ; do what you
prudently can, and you will find you can do much ;
try to do more, and you will do nothing. Be guided
by the Mayor, by your mother — and by that dear
old lady whose grandson you will "

"Then they have told you," interrupted the youth
blushing scarlet.

" My dearest boy, of course they have, and I have
seen her, and am head over ears in love with her
myself."

He was all smiles and blushes, and vowed for a
few minutes that it was a shame of them to tell me,
but presently he said —

"Then you like her."

" Rather ! " said my father vehemently, and shak-
ing George by the hand. But he said nothing about
the nuggets and the sovereigns, knowing that Yram
did not wish him to do so. Neither did George say
anything about his determination to start for the
capital in the morning, and make a clean breast of
everything to the King. So soon does it become
necessary even for those who are most cordially
attached to hide things from one another. My
father, however, was made comfortable by receiv-
ing a promise from the youth that he would take
no step of which the persons he had named would
disapprove.

When once Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter had

been introduced there was no more talking about

Hanky and Panky ; for George began to bubble

291

Erewhon Revisited

over with the subject that was nearest his heart,
and how much he feared that it would be some
time yet before he could be married. Many a
story did he tell of his early attachment and of its
course for the last ten years, but my space will not
allow me to inflict one of them on the reader.
My father saw that the more he listened and
sympathised and encouraged, the fonder George
became of him, and this was all he cared about.

Thus did they converse hour after hour. They
passed the Blue Pool, without seeing it or even
talking about it for more than a minute. George
kept an eye on the quails and declared them fairly
plentiful and strong on the wing, but nothing now
could keep him from pouring out his whole heart
about Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter, until to-
wards noon they caught sight of the statues, and a
halt was made which gave my father the first pang
he had felt that morning, for he knew that the
statues would be the beginning of the end.

There was no need to light a fire, for Yram had

packed for them two bottles of a delicious white

wine, something like White Capri, which went

admirably with the many more solid good things

that she had provided for them. As soon as they

had finished a hearty meal my father said to

George, u You must have my watch for a keepsake ;

I see you are not wearing my boots. I fear you

did not find them comfortable, but I am glad you

have not got them on, for I have set my heart on

keeping yours."

292

Back to the Statues

" Let us settle about the boots first. I rather
fancied that that was why you put me off when I
wanted to get my own back again ; and then I
thought I should like yours for a keepsake, so I
put on another pair last night, and they are no-
thing like so comfortable as yours were."

" Now I wonder," said my father to me, " whether
this was true, or whether it was only that dear
fellow's pretty invention ; but true or false I was
as delighted as he meant me to be."

I asked George about this when I saw him, and
he confessed with an ingenuous blush that my
father's boots had hurt him, and that he had never
thought of making a keepsake of them, till my
father's words stimulated his invention.

As for the watch, which was only a silver one,
but of the best make, George protested for a time,
but when he had yielded, my father could see that
he was overjoyed at getting it ; for watches, though
now permitted, were expensive and not in common
use.

Having thus bribed him, my father broached
the possibility of his meeting him at the statues
on that day twelvemonth, but of course saying
nothing about why he was so anxious that he
should come.

" I will come," said my father, " not a yard
farther than the statues, and if I cannot come I
will send your brother. And I will come at noon ;
but it is possible that the river down below may
be in fresh, and I may not be able to hit off the

293

Erewhon Revisited

day, though I will move heaven and earth to do
so. Therefore if I do not meet you on the day
appointed, do your best to come also at noon on
the following day. I know how inconvenient this
will be for you, and will come true to the day if it
is possible."

To my father's surprise, George did not raise so
many difficulties as he had expected. He said it
might be done, if neither he nor my father were
to go beyond the statues. " And difficult as it
will be for you," said George, "you had better
come a second day if necessary, as I will, for who
can tell what might happen to make the first day
impossible ?"

"Then," said my father, "we shall be spared
that horrible feeling that we are parting without
hope of seeing each other again. I find it hard
enough to say good-bye even now, but I do not
know how I could have faced it if you had not
agreed to our meeting again."

"The day fixed upon will be our XXI. i. 3, and
the hour noon as near as may be ? "

"So. Let me write it down : 'XXI. i. 3, i.e. our
December 9, 1891, I am to meet George at the
statues, at twelve o'clock, and if he does not come,
I am to be there again on the following day.' "

In like manner, George wrote down what he was
to do: " XXI. i. 3, or failing this XXI. i. 4. Statues.
Noon."

"This," he said, "is a solemn covenant, is it

not ? "

294

Back to the Statues

"Yes," said my father, "and may all good omens
attend it ! "

The words were not out of his mouth before a
mountain bird, something like our jackdaw, but
smaller and of a bluer black, flew out of the hollow
mouth of one of the statues, and with a hearty
chuckle perched on the ground at his feet, attracted
doubtless by the scraps of food that were lying
about. With the fearlessness of birds in that
country, it looked up at him and George, gave
another hearty chuckle, and flew back to its statue
with the largest fragment it could find.

They settled that this was an omen so propitious
that they could part in good hope. " Let us finish
the wine," said my father, " and then, do what
must be done."

They finished the wine to each other's good
health ; George drank also to mine, and said he
hoped my father would bring me with him, while
my father drank to Yram, the Mayor, their chil-
dren, Mrs. Humdrum, and above all to Mrs. Hum-
drum's grand-daughter. They then re-packed all
that could be taken away ; my father rolled his
rug to his liking, slung it over his shoulder, gripped
George's hand, and said, "My dearest boy, when
we have each turned our backs upon one another,
let us walk our several ways as fast as we can, and
try not to look behind us."

So saying he loosed his grip of George's hand,
bared his head, lowered it, and turned away.

George burst into tears, and followed him after
29s

Erewhon Revisited

he had gone two paces ; he threw his arms round
him, hugged him, kissed him on his lips, cheeks,
and forehead, and then turning round, strode full
speed towards Sunch'ston. My father never took
his eyes off him till he was out of sight, but the
boy did not look round. When he could see him
no more, my father with faltering gait, and feeling
as though a prop had suddenly been taken from
under him, began to follow the stream down to-
wards his old camp.

296

CHAPTER XXVI

MY FATHER REACHES HOME, AND DIES NOT LONG
AFTERWARDS

My father could walk but slowly, for George's boots

had blistered his feet, and it seemed to him that the

river-bed, of which he caught glimpses now and

again, never got any nearer ; but all things come

to an end, and by seven o'clock on the night of

Tuesday, he was on the spot which he had left on

the preceding Friday morning. Three entire days

had intervened, but he felt that something, he knew

not what, had seized him, and that whereas before

these three days life had been one thing, what little

might follow them, would be another — and a very

different one.

He soon caught sight of his horse which had

strayed a mile lower down the river-bed, and in

spite of his hobbles had crossed one ugly stream

that my father dared not ford on foot. Tired

though he was, he went after him, bridle in hand,

and when the friendly creature saw him, it recrossed

the stream, and came to him of its own accord —

either tired of his own company, or tempted by

some bread my father held out towards him. My

father took off the hobbles, and rode him bare-

297

Erewhon Revisited

backed to the camping ground, where he rewarded
him with more bread and biscuit, and then hobbled
him again for the night.

" It was here," he said to me on one of the first
days after his return, " that I first knew myself to
be a broken man. As for meeting George again, I
felt sure that it would be all I could do to meet his
brother ; and though George was always in my
thoughts, it was for you and not him that I was
now yearning. When I gave George my watch,
how glad I was that I had left my gold one at
home, for that is yours, and I could not have
brought myself to give it him."

" Never mind that, my dear father," said I, " but
tell me how you got down the river, and thence
home again."

" My very dear boy," he said, " I can hardly
remember, and I had no energy to make any more
notes. I remember putting a scrap of paper into
the box of sovereigns, merely sending George my
love along with the money ; I remember also drop-
ping the box into a hole in a tree, which I blazed,
and towards which I drew a line of wood-ashes.
I seem to see a poor unhinged creature gazing
moodily for hours into a fire which he heaps up
now and again with wood. There is not a breath
of air ; Nature sleeps so calmly that she dares not
even breathe for fear of waking ; the very river has
hushed his flow. Without, the starlit calm of a
summer's night in a great wilderness ; within, a

hurricane of wild and incoherent thoughts battling

298

The Homeward Journey

with one another in their fury to fall upon him and
rend him — and on the other side the great wall of
mountain, thousands of children praying at their
mother's knee to this poor dazed thing. I suppose
this half delirious wretch must have been myself.
But I must have been more ill when I left England
than I thought I was, or Erewhon would not have
broken me down as it did."

No doubt he was right. Indeed it was because
Mr. Cathie and his doctor saw that he was out of
health and in urgent need of change, that they left
off opposing his wish to travel. There is no use,
however, in talking about this now.

I never got from him how he managed to reach
the shepherd's hut, but I learned some little from the
shepherd, when I stayed with him both on going
towards Erewhon, and on returning.

" He did not seem to have drink in him," said
the shepherd, " when he first came here ; but he
must have been pretty full of it, or he must have
had some bottles in his saddle-bags ; for he was
awful when he came back. He had got them
worse than any man I ever saw, only that he was
not awkward. He said there was a bird flying
out of a giant's mouth and laughing at him, and
he kept muttering about a blue pool, and hanky-
panky of all sorts, and he said he knew it was all
hanky-panky, at least I thought he said so, but it
was no use trying to follow him, for it was all
nothing but horrors. He said I was to stop the

people from trying to worship him. Then he said

299

Erewhon Revisited

the sky opened and he could see the angels going
about and singing ' Hallelujah.' "

" How long did he stay with you ?" I asked.

" About ten days, but the last three he was
himself again, only too weak to move. He thought
he was cured except for weakness."

" Do you know how he had been spending the last
two days or so before he got down to your hut?"

I said two days, because this was the time I
supposed he would take to descend the river.

" I should say drinking all the time. He said he
had fallen off his horse two or three times, till he
took to leading him. If he had had any other
horse than old Doctor he would have been a dead
man. Bless you, I have known that horse ever
since he was foaled, and I never saw one like him
for sense. He would pick fords better than that
gentleman could, I know, and if the gentleman
fell off him he would just stay stock still. He was
badly bruised, poor man, when he got here. I saw
him through the gorge when he left me, and he
gave me a sovereign ; he said he had only one
other left to take him down to the port, or he
would have made it more."

"He was my father," said I, "and he is dead,
but before he died he told me to give you five
pounds which I have brought you. I think you
are wrong in saying that he had been drinking."

" That is what they all say ; but I take it very

kind of him to have thought of me."

My father's illness for the first three weeks after
300

The Homeward Journey

his return played with him as a cat plays with a
mouse ; now and again it would let him have a
day or two's run, during which he was so cheerful
and unclouded that his doctor was quite hopeful
about him. At various times on these occasions
I got from him that when he left the shepherd's
hut, he thought his illness had run itself out, and
that he should now reach the port from which he
was to sail for S. Francisco without misadventure.
This he did, and he was able to do all he had to
do at the port, though frequently attacked with
passing fits of giddiness. I need not dwell upon
his voyage to S. Francisco, and thence home ; it
is enough to say that he was able to travel by
himself in spite of gradually, but continually, in-
creasing failure.

"When," he said, "I reached the port, I tele-
graphed as you know, for more money. How
puzzled you must have been. I sold my horse to
the man from whom I bought it, at a loss of only
about ;£io, and I left with him my saddle, saddle-
bags, small hatchet, my hobbles, and in fact
everything that I had taken with me, except
what they had impounded in Erewhon. Yram's
rug I dropped into the river when I knew that
I should no longer need it — as also her substi-
tutes for my billy and pannikin ; and I burned
her basket. The shepherd would have asked me
questions. You will find an order to deliver
everything up to bearer. You need therefore take

nothing from England."

301

Erewhon Revisited

At another time he said, "When you go, for it
is plain I cannot, and go one or other of us must,
try and get the horse I had : he will be nine years
old, and he knows all about the rivers : if you
leave everything to him, you may shut your eyes,
but do not interfere with him. Give the shepherd
what I said and he will attend to you, but go a
day or two too soon, for the margin of one day
was not enough to allow in case of a fresh in
the river ; if the water is discoloured you must
not cross it — not even with Doctor. I could not
ask George to come up three days running from
Sunch'ston to the statues and back."

Here he became exhausted. Almost the last
coherent string of sentences I got from him was
as follows : —

"About George's money if I send him ^2000
you will still have nearly .£150,000 left, and Mr.
Cathie will not let you try to make it more. I
know you would give him four or five thousand,
but the Mayor and I talked it over, and settled that
-£2000 in gold would make him a rich man. Con-
sult our good friend Alfred " (meaning, of course,
Mr. Cathie) "about the best way of taking the
money. I am afraid there is nothing for it but
gold, and this will be a great weight for you to
carry — about, I believe 36 lbs. Can you do this ?
I really think that if you lead your horse you . . .
no — there will be the getting him down again "

" Don't worry about it, my dear father," said I,

" I can do it easily if I stow the load rightly, and

302

The Homeward Journey

I will see to this. I shall have nothing else to
carry, for I shall camp down below both morning
and evening. But would you not like to send
some present to the Mayor, Yram, their other
children, and Mrs. Humdrum's grand-daughter ? "

"Do what you can," said my father. And these
were the last instructions he gave me about those
adventures with which alone this work is con-
cerned.

The day before he died, he had a little flicker of
intelligence, but all of a sudden his face became
clouded as with great anxiety ; he seemed to see
some horrible chasm in front of him which he had
to cross, or which he feared that I must cross, for
he gasped out words, which, as near as I could
catch them, were, " Look out ! John ! Leap ! Leap !
Le . . ." but he could not say all that he was try-
ing to say and closed his eyes, having, as I then
deemed, seen that he was on the brink of that
gulf which lies between life and death ; I took it
that in reality he died at that moment ; for there
was neither struggle, nor hardly movement of any
kind afterwards — nothing but a pulse which for
the next several hours grew fainter and fainter so
gradually, that it was not till some time after it had
ceased to beat that we were certain of its having
done so.

303

CHAPTER XXVII

I MEET MY BROTHER GEORGE AT THE STATUES,
ON THE TOP OF THE PASS INTO EREWHON

This book has already become longer than I in-
tended, but I will ask the reader to have patience
while I tell him briefly of my own visit to the
threshold of that strange country of which I fear
that he may be already beginning to tire.

The winding-up of my father's estate was a very
simple matter, and by the beginning of September
1891 I should have been free to start ; but about
that time I became engaged, and naturally enough
I did not want to be longer away than was neces-
sary. I should not have gone at all if I could have
helped it. I left, however, a fortnight later than
my father had done.

Before starting I bought a handsome gold re-
peater for the Mayor, and a brooch for Yram, of
pearls and diamonds set in gold, for which I paid
-£200. For Yram's three daughters and for Mrs.
Humdrum's grand-daughter I took four brooches
each of which cost about .£15, 15s., and for the
boys I got three ten-guinea silver watches. For
George I only took a strong English knife of the
best make, and the two thousand pounds worth
of uncoined gold, which for convenience' sake I

304

I Meet George

had had made into small bars. I also had a knap-
sack made that would hold these and nothing
else — each bar being strongly sewn into its place,
so that none of them could shift. Whenever I went
on board ship, or went on shore, I put this on my
back, so that no one handled it except myself — and
I can assure the reader that I did not find it a light
weight to handle. I ought to have taken something
for old Mrs. Humdrum, but I am ashamed to say
that I forgot her.

I went as directly as I could to the port of
which my father had told me, and reached it on
November 27, one day later than he had done in
the preceding year.

On the following day, which was a Saturday, I
went to the livery stables from which my father
had bought his horse, and found to my great de-
light that Doctor could be at my disposal, for, as
it seemed to me, the very reasonable price of fifteen
shillings a day. I shewed the owner of the stables
my father's order, and all the articles he had left
were immediately delivered to me. I was still wear-
ing crape round one arm, and the horse-dealer,
whose name was Baker, said he was afraid the other
gentleman might be dead.

" Indeed, he is so," said I, "and a great grief it is
to me ; he was my father."

" Dear, dear," answered Mr. Baker, " that is a very
serious thing for the poor gentleman. He seemed
quite unfit to travel alone, and I feared he was not
long for this world, but he was bent on going."

30s u

Erewhon Revisited

I had nothing now to do but to buy a blanket,
pannikin, and billy, with some tea, tobacco, two
bottles of brandy, some ship's biscuits, and whatever
other few items were down on the list of requisites
which my father had dictated to me. Mr. Baker, see-
ing that I was what he called a new chum, shewed
me how to pack my horse, but I kept my knapsack
full of gold on my back, and though I could see
that it puzzled him, he asked no questions. There
was no reason why I should not set out at once
for the principal town of the colony, which was
some ten miles inland; I, therefore, arranged at
my hotel that the greater part of my luggage should
await my return, and set out to climb the high
hills that back the port. From the top of these I
had a magnificent view of the plains that I should
have to cross, and of the long range of distant
mountains which bounded them north and south
as far as the eye could reach. On some of the
mountains 1 could still see streaks of snow, but
my father had explained to me that the ranges I
should here see, were not those dividing the
English colony from Erewhon. I also saw, some
nine miles or so out upon the plains, the more
prominent buildings of a large town which seemed
to be embosomed in trees, and this I reached in
about an hour and a half ; for I had to descend
at a foot's pace, and Doctor's many virtues did not
comprise a willingness to go beyond an amble.

At the town above referred to I spent the night,

and began to strike across the plains on the fol-

306

I Meet George

lowing morning. I might have crossed these in
three days at twenty-five miles a day, but I had
too much time on my hands, and my load of
gold was so uncomfortable that I was glad to stay
at one accommodation house after another, aver-
aging about eighteen miles a day. I have no doubt
that if I had taken advice, I could have stowed my
load more conveniently, but I could not unpack it,
and made the best of it as it was.

On the evening of Wednesday, December 2, I
reached the river which I should have to follow up ;
it was here nearing the gorge through which it had to
pass before the country opened out again at the back
of the front range. I came upon it quite suddenly
on reaching the brink of a great terrace, the bank
of which sloped almost precipitously down towards
it, but was covered with grass. The terrace was
some three hundred feet above the river, and faced
another similar one, which was from a mile and
a half to two miles distant. At the bottom of this
huge yawning chasm, rolled the mighty river, and
I shuddered at the thought of having to cross and
recross it. For it was angry, muddy, evidently in
heavy fresh, and filled bank and bank for nearly a
mile with a flood of seething waters.

I followed along the northern edge of the ter-
race, till I reached the last accommodation house
that could be said to be on the plains — which, by
the way, were here some eight or nine hundred
feet above sea level. When I reached this house,
I was glad to learn that the river was not likely

307

Erewhon Revisited

to remain high for more than a day or two, and
that if what was called a Southerly Burster came
up, as it might be expected to do at any moment,
it would be quite low again before three days were
over.

At this house I stayed the night, and in the
course of the evening a stray dog — a retriever,
hardly full grown, and evidently very much down
on his luck — took up with me ; when I inquired
about him, and asked if I might take him with me,
the landlord said he wished I would, for he knew
nothing about him and was trying to drive him
from the house. Knowing what a boon the com-
panionship of this poor beast would be to me
when I was camping out alone, I encouraged
him, and next morning he followed me as a matter
of course.

In the night the Southerly Burster which my host

anticipated had come up, cold and blustering, but

invigorating after the hot, dry, wind that had been

blowing hard during the daytime as I had crossed

the plains. A mile or two higher up I passed a large

sheep-station, but did not stay there. One or two

men looked at me with surprise, and asked me

where I was going, whereon I said I was in search

of rare plants and birds for the Museum of the

town at which I had slept the night after my arrival.

This satisfied their curiosity, and I ambled on

accompanied by the dog. In passing I may say

that I found Doctor not to excel at any pace except

an amble, but for a long journey, especially for one

308

I Meet George

who is carrying a heavy, awkward load, there is no
pace so comfortable ; and he ambled fairly fast.

I followed the horse track which had been* cut
through the gorge, and in many places I disliked it
extremely, for the river, still in fresh, was raging
furiously; twice, for some few yards, where&the
gorge was wider and the stream less rapid, it
covered the track, and I had no confidence that it
might not have washed it away ; on these occasions
Doctor pricked his ears towards the water, and
was evidently thinking exactly what his rider' was.
He decided, however, that all would be sound, and
took to the water without any urging on my part.
Seeing his opinion, I remembered my father's
advice, and let him do what he liked, but in one
place for three or four yards the water came nearly
up to his belly, and I was in great fear for the
watches that were in my saddle-bags. As for the
dog, I feared I had lost him, but after a time he re-
joined me, though how he contrived to do so I
cannot say.

Nothing could be grander than the sight of this
great river pent into a narrow compass, and occa-
sionally becoming more like an immense waterfall
than a river, but I was in continual fear of coming
to more places where the water would be over the
track, and perhaps of finding myself unable to get
any farther. I therefore failed to enjoy what
was really far the most impressive sight in its way
that I had ever seen. "Give me," I said to myself
" the Thames at Richmond," and right thankful was

309

Erewhon Revisited

I, when at about two o'clock I found that I was
through the gorge and in a wide valley, the greater
part of which, however, was still covered by the
river. It was here that I heard for the first time
the curious sound of boulders knocking against
each other underneath the great body of water that
kept rolling them round and round.

I now halted, and lit a fire, for there was much
dead scrub standing that had remained after the
ground had been burned for the first time some
years previously. I made myself some tea, and
turned Doctor out for a couple of hours to feed. I
did not hobble him, for my father had told me
that he would always come for bread. When I had
dined, and smoked, and slept for a couple of hours
or so, I reloaded Doctor and resumed my journey
towards the shepherd's hut, which I caught sight
of about a mile before I reached it. When nearly
half a mile off it, I dismounted, and made a written
note of the exact spot at which I did so. I then
turned for a couple of hundred yards to my right,
at right angles to the track, where some huge rocks
were lying — fallen ages since from the mountain
that flanked this side of the valley. Here I de-
posited my knapsack in a hollow underneath some
of the rocks, and put a good sized stone in front of
it, for I meant spending a couple of days with the
shepherd to let the river go down. Moreover, as it
was now only December 3, I had too much time on
my hands, but I had not dared to cut things finer.

I reached the hut at about six o'clock, and intro-
310

I Meet George

duced myself to the shepherd, who was a nice,
kind old man, commonly called Harris, but his real
name he told me was Horace — Horace Taylor. I
had the conversation with him of which I have
already told the reader, adding that my father had
been unable to give a coherent account of what
he had seen, and that I had been sent to get the
information he had failed to furnish.

The old man said that I must certainly wait a
couple of days before I went higher up the river.
He had made himself a nice garden, in which he
took the greatest pride, and which supplied him
with plenty of vegetables. He was very glad to
have company, and to receive the newspapers
which I had taken care to bring him. He had a
real genius for simple cookery, and fed me excel-
lently. My father's £$, and the ration of brandy
which I nightly gave him, made me a welcome
guest, and though I was longing to be at any rate
as far as the foot of the pass into Erewhon, I
amused myself very well in an abundance of ways
with which I need not trouble the reader.

One of the first things that Harris said to me
was, " I wish I knew what your father did with the
nice red blanket he had with him when he went
up the river. He had none when he came down
again ; I have no horse here, but I borrowed one
from a man who came up one day from down
below, and rode to a place where I found what I
am sure were the ashes of the last fire he made, but
I could find neither the blanket nor the billy and

3"

Erewhon Revisited

pannikin he took away with him. He said he sup-
posed he must have left the things there, but he
could remember nothing about it."

" I am afraid," said I, " that I cannot help you."

" At any rate," continued the shepherd, " I did
not have my ride for nothing, for as I was coming
back I found this rug half covered with sand on the
river-bed."

As he spoke he pointed to an excellent warm
rug, on the spare bunk in his hut. " It is none of
our make," said he ; "I suppose some foreign
digger has come over from the next river down
south and got drowned, for it had not been very
long where I found it, at least I think not, for it
was not much fly-blown, and no one had passed
here to go up the river since your father."

I knew what it was, but I held my tongue beyond
saying that the rug was a very good one.

The next day, December 4, was lovely, after a
night that had been clear and cold, with frost to-
wards early morning. When the shepherd had
gone for some three hours in the forenoon to see
his sheep (that were now lambing), I walked down
to the place where I had left my knapsack, and
carried it a good mile above the hut, where I again
hid it. I could see the great range from one place,
and the thick new fallen snow assured me that the
river would be quite normal shortly. Indeed, by
evening it was hardly at all discoloured, but I waited
another day, and set out on the morning of Sunday,

December 6. The river was now almost as low as

312

I Meet George

in winter, and Harris assured me that if I used my
eyes I could not miss finding a ford over one stream
or another every half mile or so. I had the greatest
difficulty in preventing him from accompanying
me on foot for some little distance, but I got rid of
him in the end ; he came with me beyond the place
where I had hidden my knapsack, but when he had
left me long enough, I rode back and got it.

I see I am dwelling too long upon my own small
adventures. Suffice it that, accompanied by my
dog, I followed the north bank of the river till I
found I must cross one stream before I could get
any farther. This place would not do, and I had
to ride half a mile back before I found one that
seemed as if it might be safe. I fancy my father
must have done just the same thing, for Doctor
seemed to know the ground, and took to the water
the moment I brought him to it. It never reached
his belly, but I confess I did not like it. By and
by I had to recross, and so on, off and on, till at
noon I camped for dinner. Here the dog found
me a nest of young ducks, nearly fledged, from
which the parent birds tried with great success to
decoy me. I fully thought I was going to catch
them, but the dog knew better and made straight
for the nest, from which he returned immediately
with a fine young duck in his mouth, which he laid
at my feet, wagging his tail and barking. I took
another from the nest and left two for the old
birds.

The afternoon was much as the morning and
313

Erewhon Revisited

towards seven I reached a place which suggested
itself as a good camping ground. I had hardly
fixed on it and halted, before I saw a few pieces of
charred wood, and felt sure that my father must
have camped at this very place before me. I
hobbled Doctor, unloaded, plucked and singed a
duck, and gave the dog some of the meat with
which Harris had furnished me ; I made tea, laid
my duck on the embers till it was cooked, smoked,
gave myself a nightcap of brandy and water, and
by and by rolled myself round in my blanket, with
the dog curled up beside me. I will not dwell
upon the strangeness of my feelings — nor the ex-
treme beauty of the night. But for the dog, and
Doctor, I should have been frightened, but I knew
that there were no savage creatures or venomous
snakes in the country, and both the dog and Doctor
were such good companionable creatures, that I
did not feel so much oppressed by the solitude as I
had feared I should be. But the night was cold,
and my blanket was not enough to keep me com-
fortably warm.

The following day was delightfully warm as soon
as the sun got to the bottom of the valley, and the
fresh fallen snow disappeared so fast from the
snowy range that I was afraid it would raise the
river — which, indeed, rose in the afternoon and
became slightly discoloured, but it cannot have
been more than three or four inches deeper, for it
never reached the bottom of my saddle-bags. I
believe Doctor knew exactly where I was going,

314

I Meet George

for he wanted no guidance. I halted again at mid-
day, got two more ducks, crossed and recrossed
the river, or some of its streams, several times, and
at about six, caught sight, after a bend in the valley,
of the glacier descending on to the river-bed. This
I knew to be close to the point at which I was to
camp for the night, and from which I was to ascend
the mountain. After another hour's slow progress
over the increasing roughness of the river-bed, I saw
the triangular delta of which my father had told
me, and the stream that had formed it, bounding
down the mountain side. Doctor went right up to
the place where my father's fire had been, and I
again found many pieces of charred wood and
ashes.

As soon as I had unloaded Doctor and hobbled
him, I went to a tree hard by, on which I could see
the mark of a blaze, and towards which I thought
I could see a line of wood ashes running. There I
found a hole in which some bird had evidently
been wont to build, and surmised correctly that it
must be the one in which my father had hidden his
box of sovereigns. There was no box in the hole
now, and I began to feel that I was at last within
measureable distance of Erewhon and the Ere-
whonians.

I camped for the night here, and again found my
single blanket insufficient. The next day, i.e. Tues-
day, December 8, 1 had to pass as I best could, and it
occurred to me that as I should find the gold a great
weight, I had better take it some three hours up the

3i5

Erewhon Revisited

mountain side and leave it there, so as to make
the following day less fatiguing, and this I did,
returning to my camp for dinner ; but I was panic-
stricken all the rest of the day lest I should not have
hidden it safely, or lest I should be unable to find
it next day — conjuring up a hundred absurd fancies
as to what might befall it. And after all, heavy
though it was, I could have carried it all the way.
In the afternoon I saddled Doctor and rode him up
to the glaciers, which were indeed magnificent, and
then I made the few notes of my journey from which
this chapter has been taken. I made excuses for
turning in early, and at daybreak rekindled my fire
and got my breakfast. All the time the companion-
ship of the dog was an unspeakable comfort to me.
It was now the day my father had fixed for my
meeting with George, and my excitement (with
which I have not yet troubled the reader, though
it had been consuming me ever since I had left
Harris's hut) was beyond all bounds, so much so
that I almost feared I was in a fever which would
prevent my completing the little that remained of
my task ; in fact, I was in as great a panic as I had
been about the gold that I had left. My hands
trembled as I took the watches, and the brooches
for Yram and her daughters from my saddle-bags,
which I then hung, probably on the very bough on
which my father had hung them. Needless to say,
I also hung my saddle and bridle along with the
saddle-bags.

It was nearly seven before I started, and about ten
316

I Meet George

before I reached the hiding-place of my knapsack.
I found it, of course, quite easily, shouldered it,
and toiled on towards the statues. At a quarter
before twelve I reached them, and almost beside
myself as I was, could not refrain from some dis-
appointment at finding them a good deal smaller
than I expected. My father, correcting the measure-
ment he had given in his book, said he thought
that they were about four or five times the size of
life ; but really I do not think they were more than
twenty feet high, any one of them. In other re-
spects my father's description of them is quite
accurate. There was no wind, and as a matter
of course, therefore, they were not chanting. I
wiled away the quarter of an hour before the time
when George became due, with wondering at them,
and in a way admiring them, hideous though they
were ; but all the time I kept looking towards the
part from which George should come.

At last my watch pointed to noon, but there
was no George. A quarter past twelve, but no
George. Half-past, still no George. One o'clock,
and all the quarters till three o'clock, but still
no George. I tried to eat some of the ship's
biscuits I had brought with me, but I could not.
My disappointment was now as great as my excite-
ment had been all the forenoon ; at three o'clock
I fairly cried, and for half an hour could only fling
myself on the ground and give way to all the un-
reasonable spleen that extreme vexation could sug-
gest. True, I kept telling myself that for aught

317

Erewhon Revisited

I knew George might be dead, or down with a
fever ; but this would not do ; for in this last
case he should have sent one of his brothers to
meet me, and it was not likely that he was dead.
I am afraid I thought it most probable that he
had been casual — of which unworthy suspicion I
have long since been heartily ashamed.

I put the brooches inside my knapsack, and hid
it in a place where I was sure no one would find
it ; then, with a heavy heart, I trudged down again
to my camp — broken in spirit, and hopeless for the
morrow.

I camped again, but it was some hours before
I got a wink of sleep ; and when sleep came it
was accompanied by a strange dream. I dreamed
that I was by my father's bedside, watching his
last flicker of intelligence, and vainly trying to catch
the words that he was not less vainly trying to
utter. All of a sudden the bed seemed to be at
my camping ground, and the largest of the statues
appeared, quite small, high up the mountain side,
but striding down like a giant in seven league boots
till it stood over me and my father, and shouted out
"Leap, John, leap." In the horror of this vision
I woke with a loud cry that woke my dog also,
and made him shew such evident signs of fear,
that it seemed to me as though he too must have
shared my dream.

Shivering with cold I started up in a frenzy, but
there was nothing, save a night of such singular
beauty that I did not even try to go to sleep again.

318

I Meet George

Naturally enough, on trying to keep awake I dropped
asleep before many minutes were over.

In the morning I again climbed up to the statues,
without, to my surprise, being depressed with the
idea that George would again fail to meet me. On
the contrary, without rhyme or reason, I had a
strong presentiment that he would come. And
sure enough, as soon as I caught sight of the
statues, which I did about a quarter to twelve, I
saw a youth coming towards me, with a quick
step, and a beaming face that had only to be seen
to be fallen in love with.

"You are my brother," said he to me. " Is my
father with you ? "

I pointed to the crape on my arm, and to the
ground, but said nothing.

He understood me, and bared his head. Then
he flung his arms about me and kissed my fore-
head according to Erewhonian custom. I was a
little surprised at his saying nothing to me about
the way in which he had disappointed me on the
preceding day ; I resolved, however, to wait for
the explanation that I felt sure he would give me
presently.

319

CHAPTER XXVIII

GEORGE AND I SPEND A FEW HOURS TOGETHER
AT THE STATUES, AND THEN PART — I REACH
HOME — POSTSCRIPT

I HAVE said on an earlier page that George gained
an immediate ascendancy over me, but ascendancy
is not the word — he took me by storm ; how, or
why, I neither know nor want to know, but before
I had been with him more than a few minutes I
felt as though I had known and loved him all my
life. And the dog fawned upon him as though he
felt just as I did.

" Come to the statues," said he, as soon as he
had somewhat recovered from the shock of the
news I had given him. " We can sit down there on
the very stone on which our father and I sat a year
ago. I have brought a basket, which my mother
packed for — for — him and me. Did he talk to you
about me ? "

" He talked of nothing so much, and he thought
of nothing so much. He had your boots put
where he could see them from his bed until he
died."

Then followed the explanation about these boots,

of which the reader has already been told. This

320

Conclusion

made us both laugh, and from that moment we
were cheerful.

I say nothing about our enjoyment of the
luncheon with which Yram had provided us, and
if I were to detail all that I told George about
my father, and all the additional information that
I got from him — (many a point did he clear up for
me that I had not fully understood) — I should fill
several chapters, whereas I have left myself only
one. Luncheon being over I said —

"And are you married ?"

"Yes" (with a blush), "and are you ?"

I could not blush. Why should I ? And yet
young people — especially the most ingenuous
among them — are apt to flush up on being asked
if they are, or are going, to be married. If I could
have blushed, I would. As it was I could only say
that I was engaged and should marry as soon as I
got back.

"Then you have come all this way for me, when
you were wanting to get married ? "

" Of course I have. My father on his death-bed
told me to do so, and to bring you something that
I have brought you."

"What trouble I have given ! How can I thank
you ? "

" Shake hands with me."

Whereon he gave my hand a stronger grip than
I had quite bargained for.

"And now," said I, "before I tell you what I

have brought, you must promise me to accept it.

321 x

Erewhon Revisited

Your father said I was not to leave you till you had
done so, and I was to say that he sent it with his
dying blessing."

After due demur George gave his promise, and
I took him to the place where I had hidden my
knapsack.

" I brought it up yesterday," said I.

" Yesterday ? but why ? "

" Because yesterday — was it not ? — was the first
of the two days agreed upon between you and our
father ? "

"No — surely to-day is the first day — I was to
come XXI. i. 3, which would be your December 9."

" But yesterday was December 9 with us — to-day
is December 10."

" Strange ! What day of the week do you make
it?"

"To-day is Thursday, December 10."

" This is still stranger — we make it Wednesday ;
yesterday was Tuesday."

Then I saw it. The year XX. had been a leap
year with the Erewhonians, and 1891 in England
had not. This, then, was what had crossed my
father's brain in his dying hours, and what he had
vainly tried to tell me. It was also what my un-
conscious self had been struggling to tell my con-
scious one, during the past night, but which my
conscious self had been too stupid to understand.
And yet my conscious self had caught it in an
imperfect sort of a way after all, for from the

moment that my dream had left me I had been

322

Conclusion

composed, and easy in my mind that all would be
well. I wish some one would write a book about
dreams and parthenogenesis — for that the two are
part and parcel of the same story — a brood of folly
without father bred — I cannot doubt.

I did not trouble George with any of this rubbish,
but only shewed him how the mistake had arisen.
When we had laughed sufficiently over my mistake
— for it was I who had come up on the wrong day,
not he — I fished my knapsack out of its hiding-
place.

" Do not unpack it," said I, " beyond taking out
the brooches, or you will not be able to pack it so
well ; but you can see the ends of the bars of gold,
and you can feel the weight ; my father sent them
for you. The pearl brooch is for your mother, the
smaller brooches are for your sisters, and your
wife."

I then told him how much gold there was, and
from my pockets brought out the watches and the
English knife.

"This last," I said, "is the only thing that I am
giving you ; the rest is all from our father. I have
many many times as much gold myself, and this is
legally your property as much as mine is mine."

George was aghast, but he was powerless alike to
express his feelings, or to refuse the gold.

" Do you mean to say that my father left me this
by his will ? "

"Certainly he did," said I, inventing a pious
fraud.

323

Erewhon Revisited

" It is all against my oath," said he, looking grave.

"Your oath be hanged," said I. "You must give
the gold to the Mayor, who knows that it was
coming, and it will appear to the world, as though
he were giving it you now instead of leaving you
anything."

" But it is ever so much too much ! "

" It is not half enough. You and the Mayor
must settle all that between you. He and our
father talked it all over, and this was what they
settled."

" And our father planned all this, without saying
a word to me about it while we were on our way
up here ? "

" Yes. There might have been some hitch in the
gold's coming. Besides the Mayor told him not
to tell you."

"And he never said anything about the other
money he left for me — which enabled me to marry
at once ? Why was this ? "

"Your mother said he was not to do so."

" Bless my heart, how they have duped me all
round. But why would not my mother let your
father tell me ? Oh yes — she was afraid I should
tell the King about it, as I certainly should, when I
told him all the rest."

"Tell the King?" said I, "what have you been
telling the King ? "

" Everything ; except about the nuggets and the

sovereigns, of which I knew nothing ; and I have

felt myself a blackguard ever since for not telling

324

Conclusion

him about these when he came up here last
autumn — but I let the Mayor and my mother talk
me over, as I am afraid they will do again."

" When did you tell the King ? "

Then followed all the details that I have told in
the latter part of Chapter XXI. When I asked how
the King took the confession, George said —

" He was so much flattered at being treated like
a reasonable being, and Dr. Downie, who was chief
spokesman, played his part so discreetly, without
attempting to obscure even the most compromising
issues, that though his Majesty made some show of
displeasure at first, it was plain that he was heartily
enjoying the whole story.

" Dr. Downie shewed very well. He took on
himself the onus of having advised our action, and
he gave me all the credit of having proposed that
we should make a clean breast of everything.

" The King, too, behaved with truly royal polite-
ness ; he was on the point of asking why I had not
taken our father to the Blue Pool at once, and flung
him into it on the Sunday afternoon, when some-
thing seemed to strike him : he gave me a search-
ing look, on which he said in an undertone, 'Oh
yes,' and did not go on with his question. He
never blamed me for anything, and when I begged
him to accept my resignation of the Rangership,
he said —

" ' No. Stay where you are till I lose confidence
in you, which will not, I think, be very soon. I
will come and have a few days' shooting about the

325

Erewhon Revisited

middle of March, and if I have good sport I shall
order your salary to be increased. If any more
foreign devils come over, do not Blue-Pool them ;
send them down to me, and I will see what I think
of them ; I am much disposed to encourage a few
of them to settle here.'

" I am sure," continued George, " that he said
this because he knew I was half a foreign devil
myself. Indeed he won my heart not only by the
delicacy of his consideration, but by the obvious
good will he bore me. I do not know what he did
with the nuggets, but he gave orders that the
blanket and the rest of my father's kit should be
put in the great Erewhonian Museum. As regards
my father's receipt, and the Professors' two depo-
sitions, he said he would have them carefully pre-
served in his secret archives. ' A document,' he
said somewhat enigmatically, ' is a document — but,
Professor Hanky, you can have this' — and as he
spoke he handed him back his pocket-handker-
chief.

" Hanky during the whole interview was furious,

at having to play so undignified a part, but even

more so, because the King while he paid marked

attention to Dr. Downie, and even to myself,

treated him with amused disdain. Nevertheless,

angry though he was, he was impenitent, unabashed,

and brazened it out at Bridgeford, that the King

had received him with open arms, and had snubbed

Dr. Downie and myself. But for his (Hanky's)

intercession, I should have been dismissed then

326

Conclusion

and there from the Rangership. And so forth.
Panky never opened his mouth.

" Returning to the King, his Majesty said to Dr.
Dovvnie, ' I am afraid I shall not be able to canonize
any of you gentlemen just yet. We must let this
affair blow over. Indeed I am in half a mind to
have this Sunchild bubble pricked ; I never liked it,
and am getting tired of it ; you Musical Bank gen-
tlemen are overdoing it. I will talk it over with her
Majesty. As for Professor Hanky, I do not see
how I can keep one who has been so successfully
hoodwinked, as my Professor of Worldly Wisdom ;
but I will consult her Majesty about this point also.
Perhaps I can find another post for him. If I
decide on having Sunchildism pricked, he shall
apply the pin. You may go.'

" And glad enough," said George, "we all of us
were to do so."

"But did he," I asked, "try to prick the bubble
of Sunchildism ? "

" Oh no. As soon as he said he would talk it
over with her Majesty, I knew the whole thing
would end in smoke, as indeed to all outward
appearance it shortly did ; for Dr. Downie advised
him not to be in too great a hurry, and whatever he
did to do it gradually. He therefore took no further
action than to show marked favour to practical
engineers and mechanicians. Moreover he started
an aeronautical society, which made Bridgeford
furious ; but so far, I am afraid it has done us no
good, for the first ascent was disastrous, involving

327

Erewhon Revisited

the death of the poor fellow who made it, and since
then no one has ventured to ascend. I am afraid
we do not get on very fast."

" Did the King," I asked, " increase your salary ? "

"Yes. He doubled it."

" And what do they say in Sunch'ston about our
father's second visit ? "

George laughed, and shewed me the newspaper
extract which I have already given. I asked who
wrote it.

" I did," said he, with a demure smile ; " I wrote
it at night after I returned home, and before start-
ing for the capital next morning. I called myself
' the deservedly popular Ranger/ to avert suspicion.
No one found me out ; you can keep the extract ;
I brought it here on purpose."

" It does you great credit. Was there ever any
lunatic, and was he found ?"

"Oh yes. That part was true, except that he
had never been up our way."

" Then the poacher is still at large ? "

" It is to be feared so."

"And were Dr. Downie and the Professors
canonized after all."

" Not yet ; but the Professors will be next month
— for Hanky is still Professor. Dr. Downie backed
out of it. He said it was enough to be a Sun-
childist without being a Sunchild Saint. He wor-
ships the jumping cat as much as the others, but
he keeps his eye better on the cat, and sees sooner

both when it will jump, and where it will jump to.

328

Conclusion

Then, without disturbing any one, he insinuates
himself into the place which will be best when the
jump is over. Some say that the cat knows him and
follows him ; at all events when he makes a move the
cat generally jumps towards him soon afterwards."

" You give him a very high character."

"Yes, but I have my doubts about his doing
much in this matter ; he is getting old, and Hanky
burrows like a mole night and day. There is no
knowing how it will all end."

"And the people at Sunch'ston ? Has it got well
about among them, in spite of your admirable
article, that it was the Sunchild himself who inter-
rupted Hanky ? "

" It has, and it has not. Many of us know the
truth, but a story came down from Bridgeford that
it was an evil spirit who had assumed the Sun-
child's form, intending to make people sceptical
about Sunchildism ; Hanky and Panky cowed this
spirit, otherwise it would never have recanted.
Many people swallow this."

" But Hanky and Panky swore that they knew
the man."

"That does not matter."

"And now please, how long have you been
married ?"

"About ten months."

"Any family ? "

"One boy about a fortnight old. Do come
down to Sunch'ston and see him — he is your own
nephew. You speak Erewhonian so perfectly that

329

Erewhon Revisited

no human being would suspect you were a foreigner,
and you look one of us from head to foot. I can
smuggle you through quite easily, and my mother
would so like to see you."

I should dearly have liked to have gone, but it
was out of the question. I had nothing with me
but the clothes I stood in ; moreover I was longing
to be back in England, and when once I was in
Erewhon there was no knowing when I should be
able to get away again ; but George fought hard
before he gave in.

It was now nearing the time when this strange

meeting between two brothers — as strange a one

as the statues can ever have looked down upon —

must come to an end. I shewed George what the

repeater would do, and what it would expect of its

possessor. I gave him six good photographs, of

my father and myself — three of each. He had

never seen a photograph, and could hardly believe

his eyes as he looked at those I shewed him. I

also gave him three envelopes addressed to myself,

care of Alfred Emery Cathie, Esq., 15 Clifford's

Inn, London, and implored him to write to me if

he could ever find means of getting a letter over

the range as far as the shepherd's hut. At this he

shook his head, but he promised to write if he

could. I also told him that I had written a full

account of my father's second visit to Erewhon,

but that it should never be published till I heard

from him — at which he again shook his head, but

added, " And yet who can tell ? For the King

330

Conclusion

may have the country opened up to foreigners
some day after all."

Then he thanked me a thousand times over,
shouldered the knapsack, embraced me as he had
my father, and caressed the dog, embraced me
again, and made no attempt to hide the tears that
ran down his cheeks.

"There," he said ; " I shall wait here till you are
out of sight."

I turned away, and did not look back till I reached
the place at which I knew that I should lose the
statues. I then turned round, waved my hand — as
also did George, and went down the mountain side,
full of sad thoughts, but thankful that my task had
been so happily accomplished, and aware that my
life henceforward had been enriched by something
that I could never lose.

For I had never seen, and felt as though I never
could see, George's equal. His absolute uncon-
sciousness of self, the unhesitating way in which he
took me to his heart, his fearless frankness, the
happy genial expression that played on his face,
and the extreme sweetness of his smile — these were
the things that made me say to myself that the
"blazon of beauty's best" could tell me nothing
better than what I had found and lost within the
last three hours. How small, too, I felt by com-
parison ! If for no other cause, yet for this, that I,
who had wept so bitterly over my own disappoint-
ment the day before, could meet this dear fellow's
tears with no tear of my own.

33i

Erewhon Revisited

But let this pass. I got back to Harris's hut with-
out adventure. When there, in the course of the
evening, I told Harris that I had a fancy for the rug
he had found on the river-bed, and that if he would
let me have it, I would give him my red one and ten
shillings to boot. The exchange was so obviously
to his advantage that he made no demur, and next
morning I strapped Yram's rug on to my horse,
and took it gladly home to England, where I keep
it on my own bed next to the counterpane, so that
with care it may last me out my life. I wanted him
to take the dog and make a home for him, but he
had two collies already, and said that a retriever
would be of no use to him. So I took the poor
beast on with me to the port, where I was glad to
find that Mr. Baker liked him and accepted him
from me, though he was not mine to give. He had
been such an unspeakable comfort to me when I
was alone, that he would have haunted me unless
I had been able to provide for him where I knew
he would be well cared for. As for Doctor, I was
sorry to leave him, but I knew he was in good
hands.

" I see you have not brought your knapsack back,
sir," said Mr. Baker.

" No," said I, " and very thankful was I when I had
handed it over to those for whom it was intended."

" I have no doubt you were, sir, for I could see it
was a desperate heavy load for you."

" Indeed it was." But at this point I brought the

discussion to a close.

332

Postscript

Two days later I sailed, and reached home early
in February 1892. I was married three weeks later,
and when the honeymoon was over, set about
making the necessary, and some, I fear, unnecessary
additions to this book — by far the greater part of
which had been written, as I have already said,
many months earlier. I now leave it, at any rate
for the present, April 22, 1892.

Postscript. — On the last day of November 1900, I
received a letter addressed in Mr. Alfred Cathie's
familiar handwriting, and on opening it found that
it contained another, addressed to me in my own,
and unstamped. For the moment I was puzzled,
but immediately knew that it must be from George.
I tore it open, and found eight closely written pages,
which I devoured as I have seldom indeed devoured
so long a letter. It was dated XXIX. vii. 1, and, as
nearly as I can translate it was as follows ; —

" Twice, my dearest brother, have I written to
you, and twice in successive days in successive
years, have I been up to the statues on the chance
that you could meet me, as I proposed in my letters.
Do not think I went all the way back to Sunch'ston
— there is a ranger's shelter now only an hour and
a half below the statues, and here I passed the
night. I knew you had got neither of my letters,
for if you had got them and could not come your-
self, you would have sent some one whom you could

333

Erewhon Revisited

trust with a letter. I know you would, though I
do not know how you would have contrived to
do it.

" I sent both letters through Bishop Kahabuka
(or, as his inferior clergy call him, 'Chowbok'),
head of the Christian Mission to Erewhemos,
which, as your father has doubtless told you, is
the country adjoining Erewhon, but inhabited by
a coloured race having no affinity with our own.
Bishop Kahabuka has penetrated at times into
Erewhon, and the King, wishing to be on good
terms with his neighbours, has permitted him to
establish two or three mission stations in the
western parts of Erewhon. Among the mission-
aries are some few of your own countrymen.
None of us like them, but one of them is teaching
me English, which I find quite easy.

"As I wrote in the letters that have never
reached you, I am no longer Ranger. The King,
after some few years (in the course of which I
told him of your visit, and what you had brought
me), declared that I was the only one of his ser-
vants whom he could trust, and found high office
for me, which kept me in close confidential com-
munication with himself.

"About three years ago, on the death of his
Prime Minister, he appointed me to fill his place ;
and it was on this, that so many possibilities oc-
curred to me concerning which I dearly longed
for your opinion, that I wrote and asked you if
you could to meet me personally or by proxy at

334

Postscript

the statues, which I could reach on the occasion
of my annual visit to my mother — yes — and father
— at Sunch'ston.

" I sent both letters by way of Erewhemos, con-
fiding them to Bishop Kahabuka, who is just such
another as St. Hanky. He tells me that our
father was a very old and dear friend of his — but
of course I did not say anything about his being
my own father. I only inquired about a Mr.
Higgs, who was now worshipped in Erewhon as
a supernatural being. The Bishop said it was,
" Oh, so very dreadful," and he felt it all the more
keenly, for the reason that he had himself been the
means of my father's going to Erewhon, by giving
him the information that enabled him to find the
pass over the range that bounded the country.

" I did not like the man, but I thought I could
trust him with a letter, which it now seems I
could not do. This third letter I have given him
with a promise of a hundred pounds in silver for
his new Cathedral, to be paid as soon as I get an
answer from you.

" We are all well at Sunch'ston ; so are my wife
and eight children — five sons and three daughters
— but the country is at sixes and sevens. St.
Panky is dead, but his son Pocus is worse. Dr.
Downie has become very lethargic. I can do less
against St. Hankyism than when I was a private
man. A little indiscretion on my part would
plunge the country in civil war. Our engineers
and so-called men of science are sturdily begging

335

Erewhon Revisited

for endowments, and steadily claiming to have a
hand in every pie that is baked from one end of
the country to the other. The missionaries are
buying up all our silver, and a change in the
relative values of gold and silver is in progress of
which none of us foresee the end.

" The King and I both think that annexation by
England, or a British Protectorate, would be the
saving of us, for we have no army worth the name,
and if you do not take us over some one else soon
will. The King has urged me to send for you. If
you come (do ! do ! do !) you had better come by
way of Erewhemos, which is now in monthly com-
munication with Southampton. If you ;will write
me that you are coming I will meet you at the port,
and bring you with me to our own capital, where
the King will be overjoyed to see you."

The rest of the letter was filled with all sorts of
news which interested me, but would require
chapters of explanation before they could become
interesting to the reader.

The letter wound up : —

" You may publish now whatever you like, when-
ever you like.

''Write to me by way of Erewhemos, care of the
Right Reverend the Lord Bishop, and say which
way you will come. If you prefer the old road, we
are bound to be in the neighbourhood of the
statues by the beginning of March. My next
brother is now Ranger, and could meet you at the

336

Postscript

statues with permit and luncheon, and more of that
white wine than ever you will be able to drink.
Only let me know what you will do.

" I should tell you that the old railway which
used to run from Clearwater to the capital, and
which, as you know, was allowed to go to ruin, has
been reconstructed at an outlay far less than might
have been expected — for the bridges had been main-
tained for ordinary carriage traffic. The journey,
therefore, from Sunch'ston to the capital can now
be done in less than forty hours. On the whole,
however, I recommend you to come by way of
Erewhemos. If you start, as I think possible, with-
out writing from England, Bishop Kahabuka's
palace is only eight miles from the port, and he
will give you every information about your further
journey — a distance of less than a couple of hundred
miles. But I should prefer to meet you myself.

" My dearest brother, I charge you by the me-
mory of our common father, and even more by
that of those three hours that linked you to me for
ever, and which I would fain hope linked me also
to yourself — come over, if by any means you can
do so — come over and help us.

"George Strong."

" My dear," said I to my wife who was at the
other end of the breakfast table, " I shall have to
translate this letter to you, and then you will have
to help me to begin packing ; for I have none too
much time. I must see Alfred, and give him a

337 Y

Postscript

power of attorney. He will arrange with some
publisher about my book, and you can correct the
press. Break the news gently to the children ; and
get along without me, my dear, for six months as
well as you can."

I write this at Southampton, from which port
I sail to-morrow — i.e. November 15, 1900 — for
Erewhemos.

THE END

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